FRESSOZ AND ROIRE v. FRANCE JUDGMENT 10 were not empowered to convict him of a handling offence under the general criminal law, but only of one of the offences specially defined in that Act. In his reply, he pointed out that the other side was confusing “handling” with “publishing”, submitting that Mr Calvet was concerned, not by the handling but by the publication – something which did not contravene any provision of the press laws, so that the prosecution had resorted to another, inappropriate, charge, that of handling. As the second ground, both applicants argued that the elements of the offence with which they had been charged, as defined in the relevant domestic law, including sections 5, 6 and 42 of the 1881 Act, were not made out in their case. On that point, they maintained that Mr Calvet's tax assessments were not covered by a duty to preserve confidentiality – so that there could have been no breach of such a duty – but contained information which was available to the public. They argued that a journalist could not lawfully be convicted of “handling information” and submitted that the Court of Appeal had failed to demonstrate how the actus reus and mens rea of the offence with which they had been charged – namely possession or control of the thing in question and knowledge that it had been obtained unlawfully – were made out in their case. With regard to the fact that the Court of Appeal had deduced that Mr Roire must have known that the documents had been obtained unlawfully since, when he had received them, he had verified that they were indeed copies of tax assessments, Mr Roire submitted that he had “merely fulfilled his duty as a journalist: before publishing information, he had checked that it was genuine, as required by the obligation on all journalists to exercise caution and verify sources”. 24. The Court of Cassation dismissed the appeal on 3 April 1995, holding as follows: “ ... The grounds [of the Court of Appeal's judgment], following as they do from findings of fact which are not subject to review by this Court, show that the appellate court, having established that the defendants knowingly had in their possession or control documents obtained through a breach of professional confidence, contrary to Article L. 103 of the Code of Tax Procedure, did not misdirect themselves in law as alleged [by the appellants]. In particular, the Court of Appeal cannot be held to have misinterpreted Article 460 of the Criminal Code as it stood at the time, in which the only offence defined is that of handling stolen goods, since, although it found the applicants guilty of handling unlawfully obtained photocopies, it rightly dismissed the charge of handling unlawfully obtained information on which the journalists were committed for trial before the Criminal Court. Information, whatever its nature or source, is covered neither by Article 460 nor by Article 321-1 of the Criminal Code which came into force on 1 March 1994, so that,