3 DELCOURT v. BELGIUM JUDGMENT AS TO THE FACTS 9. The purpose of the Commission’s request is to obtain a decision from the Court as to whether the facts of the case do or do not disclose a violation by the Kingdom of Belgium of the obligations binding on it under Article 6 para. 1 (art. 6-1) of the Convention. 10. The relevant facts of the case as they appear from the Commission’s Report and memorial, the Government’s memorial, the documents produced and the addresses of the representatives appearing before the Court may be summarised as follows: 11. Emile Delcourt, a Belgian citizen, born on 28th December 1924, and a company director, has his residence at Waterloo. At the time of lodging his Application with the Commission (20th December 1965), he was imprisoned in the central gaol at Louvain. 12. Proceedings having been instituted against him by the Procureur du Roi at Bruges for obtaining money by menaces, fraud and fraudulent conversion, the Applicant was arrested on 23rd November 1963 and subsequently charged with a number of offences of fraud, fraudulent conversion, forgery and uttering forged documents, issuing uncovered cheques and fraudulent bills as well as obtaining credit by false pretences. On 21st September 1964, he was found guilty by the Bruges Court of Summary Jurisdiction on thirty-six out of forty-one counts and sentenced to a year’s imprisonment and a fine of two thousand Belgian francs. On 17th March 1965, the Court of Appeal in Ghent modified this judgment against which both Delcourt and the prosecution had appealed on 25th and 26th September 1964. It found all the charges to be established including those on which Delcourt had been acquitted at first instance, stressed the seriousness of the offences and referred to his previous convictions. It accordingly increased his principal sentence to five years’ imprisonment and further decided that on serving his sentence he should be "placed at the disposal of the Government" for ten years thus granting an application by the prosecution which had been rejected by the Bruges Court. On 17th and 23rd March 1965, the Applicant appealed to the Court of Cassation against the judgment of the Court of Appeal and against that of the Court at Bruges. He lodged a memorial on 20th May 1965. The Procureur général’s department (parquet) at the Court of Appeal did not avail itself of its right to file a counter-memorial. A public hearing took place before the second chamber of the Court of Cassation on 21st June 1965; the Applicant himself was present at that hearing but not his counsel. The Court of Cassation heard the report of Judge De Bersaques, its rapporteur, and then the submissions of the Avocat général, Mr. Dumon, to the effect that the two appeals should be dismissed. In its judgment delivered the same day, after deliberations held in private the Court dismissed the two appeals.