36 O’HALLORAN AND FRANCIS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT – DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE MYJER It is clear that I do not agree with the majority in this respect. Since, in paragraphs 35 and 36, the majority rightly accepted that (the criminal limb of) Article 6 is applicable in the present case (which is consistent with the reasoning in Öztürk v. Germany, 21 February 1984, Series A no. 73) it should, in my opinion, also have accepted that the right to remain silent ought to have been respected. That is not the case under the system in the United Kingdom, where section 172 of the Road Traffic Act provides that where the driver of a vehicle is alleged to be guilty of an offence, the registered owner of that vehicle (or any other person) must give information as to the identity of the driver, even when he himself was the driver, and the registered owner who fails to give such information is guilty of an offence. 8. It is well known that the Court is faced with an enormous backlog. This has prompted, among other things, the new admissibility criterion that is due to be introduced by Protocol No. 14 to the Convention (the new Article 35 § 2 (b) of the Convention) which, if one will, the present judgment appears to anticipate for a particular category of cases. If in fact the majority had decided unequivocally that, in order to be able to deal with the real core human rights issues, a de minimis non curat praetor rule for this “Treaty of Rome” was inevitable, which would mean reversing Öztürk and accepting that from now on the handling of traffic offences would no longer fall within the ambit of Article 6, then I might have agreed with such an approach. But my consent to such an approach would have had to be conditional on the provision of safeguards against abuse – and express, not implied.