40 MAKARATZIS v. GREECE JUDGMENT – PARTLY DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE WILDHABER JOINED BY JUDGES KOVLER AND MULARONI 40 However, the Court’s majority then nevertheless concludes that Article 2 was violated. It declares itself struck by the “chaotic way” in which the police operation was carried out (see paragraph 67) and explains this by the “absence of a clear chain of command” (paragraph 68), the lack of “proper training and instructions” (paragraph 70) and the “obsolete and incomplete law” regulating police conduct (paragraph 70; see also paragraphs 25, 62, and 71). The file of this case does not, in my view, establish the absence of a clear chain of command. On the contrary, several policemen referred to orders given to them and to instructions from the control centre (see paragraph 17, point 2 (Mr Netis), point 6 (Mr Ntinas), point 7 (Mr Kiriazis), paragraph 18, point 1 (Mr Ventouris), point 2 (Mr Nomikos), point 3 (Mr Xilogiannis), point 4 (Mr Davarias)), and the Athens First-Instance Criminal Court similarly accepts the existence of a chain of command (see paragraph 19). There is also reference in the file to the training that the police force receives (see paragraph 18, point 1 (Mr Ventouris)). If the Court’s majority did not accept this testimony or if it relied on extraneous evidence, it should have explained why. It is accepted that several off-duty policemen must have joined the chase and must have used their weapons. The subsequent administrative investigation did not establish adequately what had happened in that respect. That is why our Court found a procedural violation of Article 2. I joined the Court’s majority on this point, which reflects well-established case-law. However, domestic law did not prohibit off-duty members of the police force from joining a police chase in an exceptional situation, and I see no reason why such a participation should a priori be considered to constitute a substantive violation of Article 2. As I see it, the strongest argument advanced by the Court’s majority is the over-broad discretion which Law no. 29/1943 left to the police. However, at the time of the police chase in the instant case (13 September 1995), Law no. 29/1943 had already been superseded by Article 133 of Presidential Decree no. 141/1991, which authorised the use of firearms in the situations set forth in Law no. 29/1943 “only when absolutely necessary and when all less extreme methods have been exhausted”. This is admittedly not the same as an exhaustive modern police law, but it lays down an essential standard for the use of force by the police in an absolutely clear fashion. I cannot agree that the Court should find a substantive violation of Article 2 in a case that stems from the irresponsible and dangerous behaviour of the applicant; where a national criminal court has looked carefully at the relevant facts and decided that the use of force by the police was justified in order to protect the life of third persons; where our Court itself accepts the national court’s view that the use of weapons by the police was justifiable; where the applicant suffered injuries (as did some of his