NEUMEISTER v. AUSTRIA JUDGMENT 27 The Government furthermore considers that the Application is concerned only with the period spent by Neumeister in detention before he lodged his Application with the Commission (12 July 1963). By taking into account the period of time up to his release pending trial (16 September 1964) the Commission is said to have exceeded the competence conferred upon it by Articles 24-31 of the Convention (art. 24, art. 25, art. 26, art. 27, art. 28, art. 29, art. 30, art. 31). As a subsidiary argument the Government submits that the period subsequent to 8 January 1964, when the Judges’ Chamber for the first time agreed in principle to release Neumeister on bail, cannot be taken into consideration. In its view such an offer of release meets the requirements of Article 5 (3) (art. 5-3). If an individual, either because he does not agree to provide, or is unable to provide, the guarantee demanded, does not avail himself of the offer, then, in the Government’s view, he forfeits the right to trial within a reasonable time. Besides, Article 5 (3) (art. 5-3) contains no express provision against demanding "excessive" guarantees from detainees; it follows that the drafters of the Convention did not intend to place any obligation on States in this respect. 21. Neither does the Government share the opinion expressed by the Commission with regard to the second criterion. In applying it the Commission is said to have engaged in speculation on the sentence likely to be passed on the Applicant - unavoidably, since he has not yet been convicted. This speculation, it is argued, is based both on an erroneous evaluation of those facts that are considered established and also on faulty fact-finding. Thus the assumption that an Austrian court has the option of passing a sentence below the legal minimum where there are extenuating circumstances is inaccurate in the unconditional form the Commission allegedly gives to it. Section 265 (a) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which is relevant here, only applies in the exceptional case of a conjunction of very important and predominant extenuating circumstances. In order to establish the facts objectively and completely the Commission should, in the Government’s view, have taken into consideration the practice of the Austrian courts, which, it is said, are not in the habit of passing sentences appreciably lighter than the legal minimum in cases of damage amounting to several million schillings. Furthermore the Government points out that the Austrian Criminal Code also lays down a number of aggravating circumstances in Sections 43-45. Lastly, a purely mathematical calculation relating the sentence to the amount of damage for which the accused is responsible would in the Government’s view have unacceptable consequences. 22. The third criterion, too, is said to be ill-suited to consideration of the present case: it introduces differential treatment in the application of the provisions of law relating to release pending trial, a result which is incompatible with the principle of equality before the law enshrined in