SEPARATE OPINION OF JUDGE DE ROUX RENGIFO The preceding judgment has ordered the payment of sums of money to the siblings of the direct victims to compensate the non-pecuniary damage they suffered owing to the facts of the case. I share this decision and would like to make some comments on it. In general (and without prejudice to the results of a more exhaustive examination of the matter), it may be said that the Court has approached the issue of non-pecuniary damage caused to the immediate next of kin of the victims of homicide and forced disappearance, as follows: a) It has applied the presumption that this type of facts results in non-pecuniary damage to the direct victim’s parents: “in the case of the victim’s parents – [the Court has said] – non-pecuniary damages need not be shown, as they can be presumed” (Castillo Páez case. Reparations. Judgment of November 27, 1998, para. 88). b) To the contrary, in the case of siblings, the Court has evaluated the nature of the relationship that existed between them and the victim in each specific case. Thus, for example: 1) In the Aloeboetoe case, it followed the rule that consists in distinguishing between the reparations corresponding to the “successors” and those due to the other “claimants or dependants”, and it applied this rule to both non-pecuniary and pecuniary damages. Based on this distinction, it adopted the presumption that the death of the victims resulted in a damage to their “successors”, but established that “with regard to the other claimants or dependants, the onus probandi corresponded to the Commission[, which] has not submitted the evidence necessary to show that the conditions indicated have been fulfilled” (Aloeboetoe case. Reparations. Judgment of September 10, 1993, para. 71). 2) In the Loayza Tamayo case, it granted reparations for non-pecuniary damage to the siblings of María Elena Loayza, based on the confirmation that they were “members of a close family” and that, as such, “could not have been indifferent to Ms. Loayza Tamayo’s terrible suffering” (Loayza Tamayo case. Reparations. Judgment of November 27, 1998, para. 143). Each sibling received a compensation of US$3,000.00 (three thousand United States dollars) from the State of Peru, under this heading (Judgment cited, para. 143 and operative paragraph 4.d). 3) In another case, the Court began by observing that the sibling of Adolfo Garrido and Raúl Baigorria had “offered no convincing evidence” demonstrating an “affective relationship [with the latter] such that” their disappearance would have caused them grievous suffering. However, it observed the fact that these relatives of the victims showed an interest in their fate when they disappeared and took measures to discover their whereabouts (Garrido and Baigorria case. Reparations. Judgment of August 27, 1998, para. 63 and 64). Consequently, the Court condemned the State of Argentine to pay the sum of US$6,000 (six thousand United States dollars) to