134
300. As the Court has held, the non-pecuniary damage inflicted upon the victims is
obvious, since it is only human nature that any person subject to, inter alia,
treatment that violates his right to personal integrity and his right to live in dignity,
will experience profound suffering, moral anguish, fear and a sense of insecurity, and
no evidence is required to reach this conclusion.214
301. The inmates at the center endured inhuman detention conditions, which
included, inter alia, overpopulation, violence, crowding, poor diet, lack of proper
medical attention and torture. They were confined in filthy cells, with few sanitary
facilities and had little opportunity to engage in recreational activities. It was against
this backdrop of inhuman detention conditions at the center that nine inmates215 died
and 42216 were injured as a result of fires; another child 217 died from a bullet wound.
Subsequently, two children218 who had been transferred from the center to the
Emboscada adult penitentiary died from wounds inflicted by a sharp instrument.
302. This Court considers that their suffering is all the worse when one considers
that the vast majority of the victims were children and the State had special
obligations regarding to them, over and above those it has regarding to adults.219
*
*
*
303. Taking into account the various facets of the damages claimed by the
Commission and the State and applying the foregoing inferences, the Court sets, in
equity, the value of the compensation for non-pecuniary damages, as shown in the
table below (infra para. 309), based on the following parameters:
214
Cf. Case of the Gómez Paquiyauri Brothers, supra note 26, para. 217; Case of the 19 Tradesmen,
supra note 26, para. 248; and Case of Maritza Urrutia, supra note 57, para. 168.
215
Elvio Epifanio Acosta Ocampos, Marco Antonio Jiménez, Diego Walter Valdez, Sergio Daniel Vega
Figueredo, Sergio David Poletti Domínguez, Mario del Pilar Álvarez Pérez, Juan Alcides Román Barrios,
Antonio Damián Escobar Morinigo and Carlos Raúl de la Cruz.
216
Abel Achar Acuña, José Milciades Cañete Chamorro, Ever Ramón Molinas Zárate, Arsenio Joel
Barrios Báez, Alfredo Duarte Ramos, Sergio Vincent Navarro Moraez, Raúl Esteban Portillo, Ismael Méndez
Aranda, Pedro Iván Peña, Osvaldo Daniel Sosa, Walter Javier Riveros Rojas, Osmar López Verón, Miguel
Ángel Coronel Ramírez, César Fidelino Ojeda Acevedo, Heriberto Zarate, Francisco Noé Andrada, Jorge
Daniel Toledo, Pablo Emmanuel Rojas, Sixto Gonzáles Franco, Francisco Ramón Adorno, Antonio Delgado,
Claudio Coronel Quiroga, Clemente Luis Escobar González, Julio César García, José Amado Jara Fernández,
Alberto David Martínez, Miguel Angel Martínez, Osvaldo Mora Espinola, Hugo Antonio Vera Quintana, Juan
Carlos Zarza Viveros, Eduardo Vera, Cándido Ulises Zelaya Flores, Hugo Olmedo, Oscar Rafael Aquino
Acuña, Nelson Rodríguez, Demetrio Silguero and Aristides Ramón Ortiz Bernal, Carlos Raúl Romero
Giacomo, Carlos Román Feris Almirón, Pablo Ayala Azola, Juan Ramón Lugo and Rolando Benítez.
217
Benito Augusto Adorno.
218
Richard Daniel Martínez and Héctor Ramón Vázquez.
219
Cf. Case of the “Street Children” (Villagrán Morales et al.), supra note 208, para. 91.b); and
Juridical Condition and Human Rights of the Child, supra notes 150, paragraphs 54, 60, and 93.
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents