Chapter 5 • Human Rights and Arrest, Pre-Trial and Administrative Detention With regard to the right to trial within a reasonable time or to release pending trial guaranteed in article 5(3) of the European Convention, the European Court of Human Rights has held that “it is the provisional detention of accused persons which must not ... be prolonged beyond a reasonable time”, and that the end of the period with which this provision is concerned is the day “on which the charge is determined, even if only by a court of first instance”. It follows that it is not the day on which the judgement becomes final.147 Depending on the circumstances, however, the final date of the period to be taken into consideration may instead be the day of the accused’s release after having deposited his security, for instance.148 “The reasonableness of an accused person’s continued detention must be assessed in each case according to its special features”, and “the factors which may be taken into consideration are extremely diverse”; there is consequently a “possibility of wide differences in opinion in assessment of the reasonableness of a given detention”.149 Accordingly, “it falls in the first place to the national judicial authorities to ensure that the pre-trial detention of an accused person does not exceed a reasonable time. To this end, they must examine all the circumstances arguing for and against the existence of a genuine requirement of public interest justifying, with due regard to the principle of the presumption of innocence, a departure from the rule of respect for individual liberty and set these out in their decisions on the applications for release. It is essentially on the basis of the reasons given in these decisions and of the true facts mentioned by the detainee in his applications for release and his appeals that the Court is called upon to decide whether or not there has been a violation of article 5 § 3. The persistence of reasonable suspicion that the person arrested has committed an offence is a condition sine qua non for the validity of the continued detention, but, after a certain lapse of time, it no longer suffices: the Court must then establish whether the other grounds cited by the judicial authorities continued to justify the deprivation of liberty. Where such grounds are ‘relevant’ and ‘sufficient’, the Court must also ascertain whether the competent national authorities displayed ‘special diligence’ in the conduct of the proceedings. ...”150 147 Eur. Court HR, Wemhoff Case v. the Federal Republic of Germany, judgment of 27 June 1968, Series A, No. 7, p. 22, para. 5 and p. 23, para. 9. 148 Eur. Court HR, Case of Van der Tang v. Spain, judgment of 13 July 1995, Series A, No. 321, p. 18, para. 58 149 Eur. Court HR, Wemhoff Case v. the Federal Republic of Germany, judgment of 27 June 1968, Series A, No. 7, p. 24, para. 10. 150 Eur. Court HR, Case of Assenov and Others v. Bulgaria, judgment of 28 October 1998, Report 1998-VIII, p. 3300, para. 154; emphasis added. 192 Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers