MEDVEDYEV AND OTHERS v. FRANCE JUDGMENT – SEPARATE OPINIONS 47 5. We acknowledge that the Court in Rigopoulos v. Spain ((dec.), no. 37388/97, ECHR 1999-II) found that a period of sixteen days was not incompatible with the notion of “promptness” as required under Article 5 § 3 of the Convention in view of the “wholly exceptional circumstances” that were involved therein. In that case, the Spanish customs authorities, in the context of an international drug trafficking investigation, intercepted on the high seas a vessel flying the Panamanian flag and its crew was detained for as long as it took to escort the vessel to a Spanish port. In our view, however, the facts in Rigopoulos are entirely distinguishable from those of the instant case. Most significantly, in Rigopoulos, there was an independent Central Investigating Court and not a public prosecutor supervising the proceedings on board the ship on the day of interception. The very next day its crew members were informed of their situation and advised of their rights. Within two days the court had ordered the crew to be remanded in custody. On the following day they were apprised of that decision and invited to name the persons they wanted to have informed of their detention. This information was communicated to the respective embassies of the States of which the crew members were nationals. Three days after the boarding, the independent investigating court issued an order regularising the crew’s situation in accordance with the Spanish Code of Criminal Procedure. One week after the interception, the applicant had access to the services of a lawyer. Finally, it must be noted that the lawfulness of the detention with regard to Article 5 § 1 was never in issue in the Rigopoulos case. 6. We do not exclude the possibility that there may, at times, exist “wholly exceptional circumstances” which might justify a period that is, in principle, at variance with the provisions of Article 5 § 3. However, in our view, such circumstances would need to be established, clearly, and to be more than simply “special” or “exceptional”. The notion of “wholly exceptional circumstances” connotes, if not “insurmountable” or “insuperable”, then, at least, circumstances in which the authorities could not reasonably envisage or execute any other measures in order to comply with their obligations under the Convention. 7. The Government argued that the weather conditions at the relevant time and the poor state of repair of the Winner accounted for the very slow speed of the vessel and, thus, for the protracted period of time that passed before its crew was brought before a judge. Such factors may explain the delay involved, but they do not justify it. There was no evidence adduced before the Court that the French authorities had even considered, let alone examined, any other options which would have enabled the applicants to have been brought promptly before a judge. 8. In our view, it seems that various possibilities were open to the French authorities which they might have considered as a means of ensuring respect for and vindication of the applicants’ rights under Article 5 § 3. For