7 DELCOURT v. BELGIUM JUDGMENT consultative capacity at the deliberations of 21st June 1965, but maintains that this did not involve any violation of the right guaranteed by Article 6 para. 1 (art. 6-1) of the Convention. That highest court in Belgium does not deal with the merits of cases (Article 95 of the Constitution and Section 17 of the Act of 4th August 1832). In spite of its judicial nature, which has been developed through a long evolution, the Court of Cassation fulfils a function which has never ceased to have some relation with the work of the legislature. Established in the interests of the law itself, the Court of Cassation judges judgments and not persons, save in certain exceptional matters which are irrelevant to the present case. It is not therefore the function of that Court to decide disputes concerning civil rights and obligations or to determine criminal charges (décider, soit des contestations sur ses droits et obligations de caractère civil, soit du bien-fondé de toute accusation en matière pénale) within the meaning of Article 6 para. 1 (art. 6-1), as that provision has been interpreted in a series of decisions by the bodies set up to ensure the observance of the Convention. As regards the Procureur général’s department at the Court of Cassation, it must be distinguished fundamentally from the Procureur général’s department attached to the courts below. As a general rule, it has not the character of a party (Article 37 of the Decree of 15th March 1815); in the very rare cases where under the relevant law the department assumes the position of a party and institutes prosecutions the Procureur général is not present at the deliberations (Article 39 of the Decree of 15th March 1815). As the Procureur général is not concerned with the question of the guilt of the accused, he is neither their adversary nor the tool of the prosecution. For example, there is nothing to prevent him from submitting to the Court that an appeal in cassation brought by the Procureur général’s department at the Court of Appeal should be dismissed or from putting forward on his own initiative grounds for setting aside a conviction; and there are statistics to show that this is often the case. The Procureur général’s department attached to the Court of Cassation is not, therefore, in alliance with the Procureur général’s department attached to the courts below; besides, the Procureur général at the Court of Cassation exercises, in practice, over that department supervision of a purely doctrinal and scientific nature without the least power of direction (Section 154 of the Act of 18th June 1869). Furthermore, the Procureur général at the Court of Cassation is entirely independent in his relations with the Minister of Justice. In short, the role of the Procureur général is of the same kind as the functions of the Court of Cassation itself: it consists, ordinarily, in no more than giving technical and objective assistance to the Court in order to ensure the observance of the law, consistency in judicial precedent and good drafting of the judgments. To sum up, the Procureur général attached to the Court of Cassation "forms part of, and is identified with", the Court like the