potential confusion over sexual roles that could be caused in them by the absence from the home of a male father and his replacement by another person of the female gender poses a risk to the integral development of the children from which they must be protected.” 57. The Court also deemed the girls to be in a “situation of risk” that placed them in a “vulnerable position in their social environment, since clearly their unique family environment differs significantly from that of their school companions and acquaintances in the neighborhood where they live, exposing them to ostracism and discrimination, which would also affect their personal development.” Therefore, the Court felt that the conditions described constitute “just cause” in accordance with Article 225 of the Civil Code, justifying awarding custody to the father, given that the current situation “brings with it the risk of harm, which could become irreversible for the interests of the minors, whose protection should have preference over any other consideration.” The Court concluded that the challenged judges failed by “not having strictly evaluated the evidence in the proceeding” and by “having passed over the preferred right of the minors to live and grow within the bosom of a family that is structured normally and appreciated in the social environment, according to the proper traditional model, and have incurred serious fault or abuse, which must be corrected through admission of the instant complaint appeal.”74 58. The two judges of the Chamber of the Supreme Court who voted to reject the remedy of complaint put forward some arguments regarding the nature of that remedy.75 In addition, the dissenting judges deemed that, in accordance with Article 225 and the preference it gives to the mother for the care of children in case of separation, “the judge cannot change the general rule of where to place the care of the children based on arbitrary judgments or unjustified, frivolous or ambiguous grounds, but rather only when a restrictive examination of the legal standard and the accompanying evidence shows an “essential” interest of the child.”76 B. Prior considerations 1. Prior consideration on the matter of the case before the Inter-American Court 74 Ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice of Chile, May 31, 2004 (record of appendices to the application, volume V, page 2670, 2671, 2672, 2673). 75 In particular, they indicated that “it is not a procedural remedy that empowers this Court to resolve all factual and legal issues presented by the parties in the case. As is fully known and in accordance with Article 545 of the Organic Code of the Courts, the complaint appeal is a disciplinary remedy, the exclusive purpose of which is to correct faults or serious abuses committed in the issuance of a jurisdictional ruling, through a) invalidation of the ruling and b) the imposition of disciplinary measures on the judges who committed the serious fault or abuse contained in the ruling being voided. Then and discarding as a legal imperative the possibility that the complaint appeal might mean, in this Supreme Court, the opening of a third instance – that our procedural system does not accept – or that it was a suitable means for imposing debatable opinions or interpretations, it is appropriate to examine whether the judges being challenged have committed some serious fault or abuse by granting their mother, Jacqueline Karen Atala Riffo, the care of her three minor daughters, M., V., and R., aged 10, 8, and 4”. Judgment of the Supreme Court of Justice of Chile, May 31, 2004, dissenting votes of Judges Jose Benquis C. and Orlando Álvarez H. (record of appendices to the application, volume V, pages 2673 and 2674). 76 Judgment of the Supreme Court of Justice of Chile, May 31, 2004, dissenting votes of Judges Jose Benquis C. and Orlando Álvarez H. (record of appendices to the application, volume V, page 2675). In said analysis, the judges considered that: i) “the record did not provide any history on the basis of which it could be speculated that the mother […] had mistreated or neglected her daughters” and ii) the “expert opinions that appear in the record from both psychologists and social workers indicate that the mother’s sexuality does not infringe the rights of the girls, nor does it deprive her of the exercise of her right as a mother, since from a psychological or psychiatric perspective, in the judgment of those experts, this is an absolutely normal person”. Therefore, the judges conclude that “by depriving the mother, based solely on her sexual choice, of the custody of her minor daughters, – as the father ha[d] requested based on clearly subjective assessments – means imposing both on the daughters and on their mother an unnamed sanction that is outside the margin of the law, in addition to being discriminatory”. 22