SEPARATE OPINION OF JUDGE NANCY HERNÁNDEZ LÓPEZ AND
JUDGE RODRIGO MUDROVITSCH
INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS
CASE OF VALENCIA CAMPOS ET AL. V. BOLIVIA
JUDGMENT OF OCTOBER 18, 2022
(Preliminary objection, merits, reparations and costs)
1.
The case of Valencia Campos et al. v. Bolivia examines the international
responsibility of the State for the human rights violations in the context of the house raids
and the arrests conducted during the police operation that following an attack on an
armored truck, as well as in the context of the subsequent detention and criminal
proceedings against the alleged perpetrators and participants. 1
2.
We agree fully with the reasoning adopted by the Inter-American Court of Human
Rights (hereinafter “the Court”) in the judgment on the preliminary objection and merits,
and with the measures of reparation established. 2
3.
Consequently, this opinion focuses on the specific issue of the nighttime house raids
that occurred in this case. The Court rightly considered that those house raids entailed a
violation of Articles 11(2) and 17 of the American Convention on Human Rights (“the
Convention”), which establish, respectively, the right not to be subjected to arbitrary
interference in private life and the home, and the right to protection of the family. 3 In
addition to the reasons given in the judgment, we believe it important to examine the
issue of the violation of those rights further, considering the strictly exceptional nature of
nighttime house raids, and the special vulnerability of women and children when this type
of measure is executed.
4.
We believe that the limitations to this procedural investigative measure should be
established by law and should meet the requirements of strict legality and proportionality.
We will organize our consideration on the issue as follows: after briefly recapitulating the
factual base (I), we will present the arguments that support the non-conformity with the
Convention of nighttime house raids – except in absolutely exceptional situations which
we will describe in this opinion – stressing the rights to privacy, intimacy and sociability,
as well as the duty to protect vulnerable groups (II), to establish the absolute necessity
of observing both lawfulness and proportionality in the regulation and execution of
nighttime raids of the home (III).
I. Contextualization of the nighttime house raids conducted by state agents
5.
According to the judgment, on December 14, 2001, a group of individuals attacked
an armored truck in La Paz, and escaped from the scene of the crime. 4 The same day, the
1
Case of Valencia Campos et al. v. Bolivia. Preliminary objections, merits, reparations and costs. Judgment
of October 18, 2022. Series C No. 469 (hereinafter, “the judgment”), para. 109.
2
Specifically, the Court concluded that the State was responsible for violating the right to personal liberty;
the rights to private and family life and to the inviolability of the home; the right to property; the right to personal
integrity; the rights of the child; the right to life; the right to health; the rights to the presumption of innocence
and to the protection of honor and dignity; the right to judicial guarantees (in particular, the right of defense and
the right not to bear witness against oneself), and the obligation to investigate acts of torture.
3
Cf. Judgment, paras. 147 to 157. The arrests made in the context of the raids also supposed a violation
of the right to personal liberty (Article 7 of the Convention); however, this opinion focuses on the raids
themselves.
4
Cf. Judgment, paras. 51 and 52.
1