DELCOURT v. BELGIUM JUDGMENT 6 18. Unlike the Government, the Commission considers unanimously that Article 6 para. 1 (art. 6-1) of the Convention is applicable in the present case to the proceedings in cassation. In the view of the majority of the Commission, however, the presence of a member of the Procureur général’s department attached to the Court of Cassation at the deliberations of 21st June 1965 was not incompatible with this text. In actual fact, this highest court in Belgium does not deal with the merits (fond) of cases (Article 95 of the Constitution and Section 17 of the Act of 4th August 1832); save in certain exceptional matters, irrelevant to this case, the Court of Cassation’s sole function is to decide questions of law. The Procureur général’s department is confined to assisting the Court in the exercise of its functions. That department does not, ordinarily, conduct prosecutions and it has not the character of a party (Article 37 of the Prince Sovereign’s Decree of 15th March 1815). In almost all cases it is completely independent of the Minister of Justice and has no right of direction over the Procureur général’s department which is attached to the courts of first instance and appeal and which is the prosecuting authority in normal cases. The participation of the Procureur général’s department at the deliberations of the Court of Cassation does not, therefore, conflict with the principle of "equality of arms", even when it is examined in the light of the precedents set by the Commission (Ofner, Hopfinger, Pataki and Dunshirn cases). The Delegates of the Commission brought to the attention of the Court the joint dissenting opinion of six members of the Commission: these members of the Commission were of the opinion that the participation of the Procureur général’s department at the deliberations of the Court of Cassation did not comply with the requirements of Article 6 para. 1 (art. 61). The Commission did not deem it necessary to express an opinion on the "new" complaints which appeared in Delcourt’s above-mentioned observations of 8th December 1967 (paragraph 15 above); in the Commission’s view, the Applicant presented them only as special aspects of the principle of "equality of arms" which the majority of the Commission did not consider to be violated. In its memorial of 22nd May 1969 and at the hearing held on 29th September 1969, the Commission requested the Court: "to decide whether or not, in the course of the proceedings before the Belgian Court of Cassation in the Delcourt case on 21st June 1965, there was a violation of Article 6 para. 1 (art. 6-1) of the Convention, insofar as this provision requires a fair trial, by reason of the participation of the representative of the Procureur général’s department in the deliberations of the Court of Cassation". 19. The Government does not dispute that a member of the Procureur général’s department at the Court of Cassation, after submitting in open court that the Applicant’s appeals should be refused, was present in a