3 punishment of those responsible for the facts that breached his rights- has been thwarted. The fact that thirteen years after the events -not extremely complex in and of themselves (a massive detention of teenagers upon the occasion of a rock concert)- during which time a great number of judges have been involved in the proceeding (even the Supreme Court of Justice), it has not been able to conclude naturally through a judgment that definitively establishes the facts and those responsible for them, is not acceptable. There are no reasons to justify such a delay in the rendering of justice. In this regard, I believe it appropriate to state that the judges have a delicate responsibility as directors of the proceeding. On the one hand, they must ensure compliance with the rules of due process, enabling unrestricted exercise of the guarantees set forth in Article 8 of the American Convention, but on the other hand they must protect the victim’s right to justice (Article 25 of the Convention), the concrete expression of which is delivery of a judgment on the facts and responsibilities. With respect to the latter issue, judicial bodies must seek to avoid perversion of the meaning of legitimate means of defense and of the requirement of procedural good faith when they are exercised. This happens when repetitive or clearly out-of-place actions merely seek to delay the proceeding until criminal prosecution is extinguished simply due to the passage of time. If this were to happen, impunity would thwart the victim’s right to justice, and effective judicial protection would become dead letter. 5. The judgment of the Court includes another significant point. It establishes that domestic legal provisions, such as extinguishment, cannot be raised as obstacles to decisions of the Court that deem investigation and punishment for violation of human rights to be in order as a form of reparation. This constitutes an additional step forward in case law that was being established regarding this matter.3 Extinguishment is a precept of ordinary law that involves abandonment of criminal prosecution by the State, when time elapsed since the crime was committed leads to the presumption that the social concern it caused has ceased, for which reason punishment imposed would lack a preventive purpose. Judgments of the Court that deem the duty to investigate and punish appropriate in a given case, based on Article 1 of the American Convention, are binding for the States, due to the international commitment they have undertaken to comply with the obligations set forth in the Convention, especially Article 62 (1), which recognizes the binding jurisdiction of the Court regarding all cases pertaining to interpretation and enforcement of the Convention. 3 Cf. Benavides Cevallos Case. September 9, 2003 Order of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Whereas six and seven; Trujillo Oroza Case, Reparations, supra note 2, para. 106; Barrios Altos Case. Interpretation of Judgment on the Merits (Art. 67 American Convention on Human Rights). September 3, 2001 Judgment. Series C No. 83, para. 15; and Barrios Altos Case. March 14, 2001 Judgment. Series C No. 75, para. 41.