45 67. When determining the scope of the guarantees included in Article 8(2) of the Convention, the Court must consider the role of the “indictment” in the criminal due process vis-à-vis the right to a defense. The material description of the conduct attributable contains the factual data included in the indictment, which is the indispensable reference for the exercise of the defense of the accused and the consequent consideration of the judge in the verdict. Therefore, the defendant has the right to know, through a clear, detailed, and precise description, the facts he is being charged with. Their legal classification may be varied during the process by the prosecutor or the judge, without this violating the right to a defense, when the facts themselves are maintained invariable and the procedural guarantees included in the law for the change to the new classification are observed. The so-called “principle of coherence or correlation between the indictment and the conviction” implies that the judgment may fall only upon the facts or circumstances included in the indictment. 68. Since the principle of coherence or correlation is an indispensable corollary of the right to a defense, the Court considers that it constitutes a fundamental guarantee of the due process in criminal matters, which the States must observe in compliance of the obligations included in subparagraphs b) and c) of Article 8(2) of the Convention. 69. In the case Pélissier and Sassi v. France, the European Court of Human Rights determined that the applicants were not given the opportunity to prepare their defense with regard to the new charge they were accused of, since it was only through the judgment of the appeals court that they found out of the change in the classification of the facts. Specifically, it considered that the change accepted in the judgment altered the terms of the initial indictment. In this regard it made the following considerations: […] The Court observes that the provisions of paragraph 3 (a) of Article 6 point to the need for special attention to be paid to the notification of the “accusation” to the defendant. Particulars of the offence play a crucial role in the criminal process, in that it is from the moment of their service that the suspect is formally put on notice of the factual and legal basis of the charges against him (see the Kamasinski v. Austria judgment of 19 December 1989, Series A no. 168, pp. 36-37, § 79). Article 6 § 3 (a) of the Convention affords the defendant the right to be informed not only of the cause of the accusation, that is to say the acts he is alleged to have committed and on which the accusation is based, but also the legal characterisation given to those acts. That information should, as the Commission rightly stated, be detailed. […] The scope of the above provision must in particular be assessed in the light of the more general right to a fair hearing guaranteed by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (see, mutatis mutandis, the following judgments: Deweer v. Belgium of 27 February 1980, Series A no. 35, pp. 30-31, § 56; Artico v. Italy of 13 May 1980, Series A no. 37, p. 15, § 32; Goddi v. Italy of 9 April 1984, Series A no. 76, p. 11, § 28; and Colozza v. Italy of 12 February 1985, Series A no. 89, p. 14, § 26). The Court considers that in criminal matters the provision of full, detailed information concerning the charges against a defendant, and consequently the legal characterisation that the court might adopt in the matter, is an essential prerequisite for ensuring that the proceedings are fair. […] Lastly, as regards the complaint under Article 6 § 3 (b) of the Convention, the Court considers that sub-paragraphs (a) and (b) of Article 6 § 3 are connected and that the right to be informed of the nature and the cause of the accusation must be considered in the light of the accused’s right to prepare his defence.87 87 Cfr. Pelissier and Sassi v. France 25444/94, [1999] ECHR, paras. 51-54.