33. Lastly, the arguments of the State concerning the consequences of the annulment of the
judgment of May 6, 2005, refer to matters relating to the merits that will be analyzed in the
corresponding chapter of this judgment.
34.
Therefore, the Court declares the preliminary objection filed by the State inadmissible.
V
PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS
A.
The factual framework of the case
A.1
Arguments of the parties and of the Commission
35. The State argued that “the sole purpose of this international litigation is the one
indicated by the [Commission] in its brief submitting the case.” Namely, to determine whether
“the disciplinary proceedings that culminated with a sanction of censure – later reduced to a
private reprimand – against Judge Daniel Urrutia Laubreaux because he sent an academic
paper to the Supreme Court of Justice criticizing its actions during the Chilean military regime”
constituted a violation of the American Convention. Therefore, it “categorically reject[ed[ that
the new facts indicated by the representatives in their [motions and pleadings brief] form[ed]
part of the factual framework of this case.” The State argued that some of the new facts had
been “alleged during the merits stage before the [Commission, and] expressly excluded by
that inter-American organ from the legal analysis and factual framework in its Merits Report,
considering that they had not been admitted in its previous report, and were not sufficiently
linked to the facts declared admissible; also, that it did not have sufficient information about
them.” Moreover, other facts had been alleged for the first time following notification of the
Merits Report. The State argued that those facts “owing to their nature and to the grounds
that gave rise to them [were] absolutely unconnected to the alleged violation of the rights
included in the petition and in the [Commission’s] Merits Report. Furthermore, they were
neither supplementary nor explanatory. Consequently, such facts were not related to the
purpose of the litigation and, therefore, could not be considered part of the factual framework
of the case.” Regarding the supervening facts, the State indicated that, “because this specific
case differs from other disciplinary proceedings, the representatives’ argument is erroneous
when affirming an abstract situation of a supposed climate of persecution and harassment
against Judge Urrutia while, at the same time, deviating from the purpose of the dispute based
on which Judge Urrutia filed his petition before the inter-American system.”
36. The Commission, in its Merits Report, noted that the initial petition only included the
facts relating to the sanction procedure brought against the presumed victim in 2004. It
clarified that those were the facts admitted in the Admissibility Report. In the Merits Report,
it indicated that the subsequent disciplinary procedures that “were not admitted in the
Admissibility Report […] are not sufficiently connected to the facts declared admissible and,
as the [Commission] does not have sufficient evidence on them,” it did not refer to those facts
in its analysis of law in the Merits Report.
37. In its final observations, the Commission indicated that “although, in its Merits Report,
it had only made legal determinations regarding one disciplinary sanction imposed on the
victim […], there were other facts that form[ed] part of the factual framework of the Merits
Report”; in particular those included in the chapter entitled “Other disciplinary proceedings.”
The Commission stressed that “a relationship of connectivity exist[ed] with the facts and
proceedings described in the Merits Report, and that the State ha[d] had the opportunity to
exercise the right of defense in this regard,” so that it considered that they should be analyzed
by the Court.
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