REPORT No. 01/13 CASE 12.693 MERITS MARÍA NINA LUPE DEL ROSARIO ANDRADE SALMÓN BOLIVIA March 18, 2013 I. SUMMARY 1. On April 2, 2001, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter also “the Inter-American Commission,” “the Commission” or “the IACHR”) received a petition that Coty Krsul Andrade1 (hereinafter also “the petitioners”) filed on behalf of Ms. María Nina Lupe del Rosario Andrade Salmón (hereinafter also “the alleged victim” or “Ms. Andrade”) in which they alleged that the Plurinational State of Bolivia (hereinafter also “Bolivia,” “the State” or “the Bolivian State”) violated the rights recognized in articles 5 (right to humane treatment), 7 (right to personal liberty), 8 (right to a fair trial), 11 (right to have one’s honor respected and dignity recognized), 21 (right to private property), 22 (freedom of movement and residence), and 25 (right to judicial protection) of American Convention on Human Rights (hereinafter also “the American Convention” or “the Convention”), read in conjunction with Article 1(1) (obligation to respect and guarantee rights) and Article 2 (duty to adopt domestic legislative measures) thereof. 2. The petitioners argued that Ms. Adrade was unlawfully detained for a period of six months and seven days, in the context of six criminal cases being prosecuted against her for acts that Ms. Andrade was alleged to have committed during the time she was serving as the Mayor of La Paz. The petitioners alleged that those proceedings not only failed to produce any evidence of her participation in the crimes alleged but also were protracted by unwarranted delays in rendering the court’s decision. They also pointed out that her unlawful prosecution was the result of biased court rulings following proceedings in which both the prosecutors and the examining judges had allegedly waged a campaign to smear her good name because of political raisons. 3. On March 19, 2009, the IACHR declared the petition admissible in its Report No. 11/09, in relation to the rights recognized in articles 7, 8, 21, 22 and 25 of the American Convention, read in conjunction with the obligations established in articles 1(1) and 2 thereof, and declared the petition inadmissible with respect to the rights recognized in articles 5 and 11 of the American Convention. 4. In the merits phase, the petitioners are alleging that by ignoring the prerequisites for pretrial detention established in Bolivia’s Code of Criminal Procedure and by disregarding the Constitutional Court’s rulings declaring that Ms. Andrade’s incarceration was unlawful, the State violated articles 7(2), 7(3) and 7(6) of the American Convention and Article 25 thereof. They are also alleging that the State violated Article 8(1) of the American Convention by bringing 6 criminal cases against Ms. Andrade, by assigning some of these cases to specific judges, in violation of Bolivian law, by allowing some of the cases to languish for years in the investigative phase, and by delaying a decision in some of the cases for more than 9 years. They also point out that the State violated Article 21 of the American Convention by virtue of the fact that on the basis of these criminal cases, it had frozen Ms. Andrade Salmón’s bank accounts and ordered her to pay unreasonable bail. With regard to Article 22 of the American Convention, the petitioners allege that by ordering her not to leave the court’s jurisdiction and prohibiting her from any travel beyond the perimeter of La Paz, the State had violated her right to freedom of movement. 1 On June 24, 2002, a brief written by Ms. Andrade was received in which she grants power of attorney to Mr. John Slater, Mr. John Lee and Northwestern University’s Center for International Human Rights to represent her in her case with the Commission.