TWENTY-FIRST DAY
Monday, 17 December 1945

Morning Session
THE PRESIDENT (Lord Justice Sir Geoffrey Lawrence): I have four announcements to make on behalf of the Tribunal. I will read those announcements now and they will be posted upon the board in the defendants' counsel's Information Center in German as soon as possible.

The first announcement is this:

The attention of the Tribunal has been drawn to publications in the press of what appear to have been interviews with some of the defendants in this case, given through the agency of their counsel. The Tribunal considers it necessary to state with the greatest emphasis that this is a procedure which cannot and will not be countenanced. Therefore, counsel are warned that they should observe the highest professional standards in such matters and should not use the opportunity afforded to them of conferring freely with their clients to act in any way as intermediaries between the defendants and the press, and they must exercise the greatest professional discretion in making any statement on their own behalf.

The Tribunal recognizes that in a trial of this kind, where the public interest is world-wide, it is in the highest degree important that all those who take part in the trial in any capacity whatever should be aware of their responsibility to see that nothing is done to detract from the proper conduct of the proceedings.

The press of the world is rendering a very great service in giving publicity to the proceedings of the Tribunal, and the Tribunal feels that it may properly ask for the co-operation of all concerned to avoid anything which might conflict with the impartial administration of justice.

The second announcement that I have to make is this:

The Tribunal understands that the counsel appointed under Article 9 of the Charter are in doubt whether they have been appointed to represent the groups and organizations charged in the Indictment as criminal or to represent individual applicants who have applied to be heard under the said article.

The Tribunal directs that counsel represent the groups and organizations charged, and not the applicants. As the Tribunal has