Chapter 6 • The Right to a Fair Trial: Part I – From Investigation to Trial the legitimate aim pursued”.45 Consequently, there was no violation of article 8 in this case. 6.1.3 Interference with correspondence Interference with correspondence by national authorities can constitute a problem for persons deprived of their liberty and numerous complaints have been submitted to the European Court of Human Rights in this regard. Where they have been submitted by prisoners convicted of criminal offences, they will be dealt with in Chapter 8. In the case of Pfeifer and Plankl, however, the applicants corresponded with each other while in detention on remand, and in one letter, the investigating judge crossed out and rendered illegible certain passages which he considered to contain “jokes of an insulting nature against prison officers”.46 The Court considered that the deletion of the passages constituted an unjustified interference with the applicants’ correspondence. It agreed with the European Commission of Human Rights “that the letter consisted rather of criticisms of prison conditions and in particular the behaviour of certain prison officers” and noted that, although “some of the expressions used were doubtless rather strong ones, ... they were part of a private letter which under the relevant legislation ... should have been read by Mr. Pfeifer and the investigating judge only”.47 It next referred to its judgment in the case of Silver and Others, where it had held “that it was not ‘necessary in a democratic society’ to stop private letters ‘calculated to hold the authorities up to contempt’ or containing ‘material deliberately calculated to hold the prison authorities up to contempt’ ...”; although the deletion of passages in the case of Pfeifer and Plankl was “admittedly a less serious interference”, it was nonetheless “disproportionate” in the circumstances of the case and violated article 8 of the Convention.48 The case of Schönenberg and Durmaz concerned correspondence between a lawyer and a person held in detention on remand. The applicant, a taxi-driver, was arrested in Geneva in connection with suspected drug offences and subsequently transferred to Zürich. A few days later the wife of Mr. Durmaz asked Mr. Schönenberg to take charge of her husband’s defence. On the same day Mr. Schönenberg sent a letter with enclosure to the district prosecutor’s office, as required by the Swiss legislation, requesting that the letter be forwarded to the addressee. In his letter, Mr. Schönenberg told Mr. Durmaz that he had been instructed by the latter’s wife to undertake his defence and sent him forms giving him authority to act. He also, inter alia, wrote that it was his duty to point out that he was entitled to refuse to make statements and that anything he said could be used against him.49 The district prosecutor withheld this letter with enclosure and never informed Mr Durmaz about it; by virtue of an order, the prosecutor’s office subsequently decided not to communicate the letter to Mr. Durmaz; instead, a Zürich lawyer was appointed to represent him.50 45 Ibid., p. 27, para. 66. 46 Eur. Court HR, Case of Pfeifer and Plankl v. Austria, judgment of 25 February 1992, Series A, No. 227, p. 18, para. 47. 47 Ibid., para. 47 at p. 19. 48 Ibid., loc. cit. and p. 19, para. 48. 49 Eur. Court HR, Case of Schönenberg and Durmaz, judgment of 20 June 1988, Series A, No. 137, p. 8-9, paras. 8-9. 50 Ibid., p. 9, paras. 10-11. 228 Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers