12
one that should not interfere with the protection of human rights. The terms used by
the Court, which it may return to later on if it were necessary to include greater
precisions, allow the observer, the interpreter, the law enforcement agent, and the
defender of rights to know which is the scope of Article 8(1) of the Convention in what
refers to the guarantee of the reasonable time.
VII.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
45.
At the beginning of this Vote I also mentioned a subject of the Judgment that
does not refer directly to the due process: freedom of (thought and) expression,
pursuant to Article 13, affected in the present case, because the victim was prohibited
from using the language of the social group he belongs to, the Garifuna people, while
he was imprisoned. This violation, in the concept of the Court, also touches Article 24
of the Convention –“Right to Equal Protection”—in connection with Article 1(1), that is,
it constitutes an act of discrimination that violates those precepts of the Pact of San
Jose, or that concurs to characterize the violation declared with regard to Article 13.
46.
In this extreme, the use of a language has a multiple scope: on one hand, it is
the means through which the right to expression of thought, essential instrument of
the latter, is exercised by different ways; on the other, it is a specific part of the
cultural identity of the victim, taking into account that it is the language that
corresponds to the group to which he belongs, which is a minority, with its own
cultural presence within the national Honduran society; and finally, the prohibition
occurs within a prison and affects a more or less ample group of inmates –and of
course the victim in this case--, that are in a special situation of vulnerability and with
regard to whom the State’s special role of guarantor must be exercised, given its
characteristic relationship with the people subject de jure and de facto, in an extremely
ample form, to its power of control.
47.
The freedom of expression guaranteed by Article 13 of the Convention has
certain limits, authorized by the same Pact (paragraphs 2 through 5); none of them
was reached by the behavior of the inmate who was prohibited from using his
language in prison. The restrictions or limits derived from Article 32 of the Convention
were also not of relevance in this case. If any of the hypothesis that apparently justify
the prohibition imposed would have been present, the State would have had to prove
in which way the use of the Garifuna language within the prison could have implied
problems of national security, public order, health, moral, rights of third parties, or
common good. The simple statement of these concepts puts in evidence the illegality
of the prohibition established. It is not even necessary to say, but I will mention it,
that we are referring to a language established in a social group, not a code of voices
used by criminals to trick or distract State agents.
48.
Besides, the Garifuna language is an element of personal and collective identity.
It is an element of the characteristic culture of a certain group within the Honduran
society. The members of the same have the right to their identity, which informs of
their individual and collective values, orients its vital trajectory, its personal and social
options. The State is obliged to acknowledge that singularity –which becomes
untouchable, within the national generality— and offer measures of respect and
guarantee for them. The principle of equality and non-discrimination, enshrined in
Article 1(1), and the equal protection before the law, established in Article 24, imply
that all people subject to the jurisdiction of a certain State may enjoy the protection
they require for the effective enjoyment and exercise of their rights. This implies
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