CONCURRING OPINION OF JUDGE DE MEYER

( Translation )

In this case it would have been sufficient to note that the right to a fair trial necessarily (and not just "in principle") implies, for the parties to a trial, the right to "have knowledge of and comment on all evidence adduced or observations filed" [4] , and that this right had therefore been manifestly infringed, in that no copy of the observations sent to the Federal Court by the Cantonal Court had been supplied to Mr Nideröst -Huber [5] .

We did not have to spend time replying to the unconvincing arguments by which it was sought to justify what happened in this case.

In the expatiatory remarks which we felt obliged to make in reply to these arguments we were thus led to say some things that it would have been better for us not to have said.

Firstly, it is not at all certain that in this area Contracting States enjoy "greater latitude" in civil cases "than in the criminal sphere" [6] . The fact that this assertion has been made, and - be it said - without sufficient justification, in earlier judgments is no reason to repeat it yet again here.

Moreover, it was completely unnecessary to concede that "the filing of observations like those in issue in the present case is calculated to save time and expedite the proceedings" [7] . We had already shown sufficient (and perhaps too much) understanding by accepting that, "in itself", it was "not incompatible with the requirements of a fair trial" [8] .

[1] The case is numbered 104/1995/610/698. The first number is the case's position on the list of cases referred to the Court in the relevant year (second number). The last two numbers indicate the case's position on the list of cases referred to the Court since its creation and on the list of the corresponding originating applications to the Commission.

[2] Rules of Court B, which came into force on 2 October 1994, apply to all cases concerning the States bound by Protocol No. 9 (P9).

[3] Note by the Registrar: f or practical reasons this annex will appear only with the printed version of the judgment (in Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997-I), but a copy of the Commission's report is obtainable from the registry.

[4] See paragraph 24 of the judgment.

[5] See paragraph 10 of the judgment.

[6] See paragraph 28 of the judgment.

[7] See paragraph 30 of the judgment.

[8] See paragraph 22 of the judgment.