ELCI AND OTHERS v. TURKEY JUDGMENT 111 of Law No. 1136 in the present case. It would observe, however, that the legal position at the material time in relation to the investigation of offences alleged to have been committed by lawyers is both lacking in clarity and uncertain. In particular, it is far from clear on the material before the Court whether the effect of Article 9 of Law No. 2845 was to exclude entirely from the scope of the Law on Advocates any offence falling within the jurisdiction of the State Security Court; nor is it apparent what, if any, legal effect the ministerial circular of 1994 had in relation to the investigation of such offences. 679. What is clear and established by the evidence before the Court is that, in order to be lawful, the detention of a suspect, whether or not a lawyer and whether or not the suspected offence falls within the jurisdiction of the State Security Court, requires the authority of a Prosecutor. Such authority may be given orally and may exceptionally be given after the event but, according to the evidence of Mr. Gül, the authority will thereafter be recorded in writing. The central question before the Court is whether it has been sufficiently shown that these requirements of domestic law were complied with in the case of the detention of the present applicants. 680. The Court notes at the outset that no witness who appeared before the Commission Delegates accepted direct personal responsibility for the decision to detain the applicants. Mr. Hatipoğlou accepted that he would have been the person “most responsible” for the decision to detain the applicants but asserted that the final decision to detain had come from the Chief Prosecutor (paragraph 305 above); Mr. Yedekçi gave evidence that the 100 page statement of Abdul Güven had been taken to the Chief Prosecutor for his authorisation and that the latter issued an instruction to detain the applicants (paragraph 342 above) ; Mr Haney asserted that he had had nothing to do with the applicants' apprehension, the decision to detain being taken by the Chief Prosecutor at the State Security Court, Bekir Selçuk (paragraph 354 above). However, the Court notes that Mr. Selçuk did not appear before the Delegates and was at no stage proposed by the Government as a witness. In the absence of his evidence, no clear picture has emerged of the steps taken by the authorities to obtain prior authorisation for the detention of the applicants or, assuming that there was no prior authorisation, to obtain ratification of the decision to detain after the event. In particular, it is unclear whether, even if, as Mr. Haney suggested might have been the case (paragraph 354 above), the instructions were given orally, they were subsequently confirmed in writing; nor is it clear whether (as Mr. Hatipoğlu asserted) a single decision was taken at the same time to detain all the applicants, notwithstanding the fact that the applicants were in fact detained on nine separate dates over a 23-day period, or whether, as this time span would suggest, there was in fact more than one decision to detain.