rights, and civil and political rights in that the different categories of rights constitute an
indivisible whole based on the recognition of the dignity of the human person, for which reason
both require permanent promotion and protection if they are to be fully realized, and the
violation of some rights in favor of the realization of others can never be justified.”
9.
Under this position, Article 26 of the Convention functions as a framework article in
that it refers in general terms to economic, social, cultural and environmental rights, the
reading and the determination of which remits us to the OAS Charter. The Protocol of San
Salvador, in turn, individualizes and provides content to those rights. In my view, the great
importance of these rights, the Protocol states that they should be reaffirmed, developed,
perfected and protected (see Preamble). Finally, there is a group of instruments of the interAmerican corpus juris that also refer to ESCER.
10.
This viewpoint does not place Article 26 on a higher (nor a lower) plane than civil and
political rights, but rather it integrates them under a framework article that protects ESCER
and allows a greater and more coherent confluence with the other articles of the Convention
in determining the object and scope of the violations. In reaffirming the position of
simultaneity, we are seeking to leave aside the reductionisms that might lead to representing
the two aforementioned positions. On the one hand, a position that eliminates the possibility
of declaring a violation of Article 26 would, in the end, completely make invisible the autonomy
and existence of ESCER as true rights, justiciable and, therefore, in force. On the other hand,
a position that simply considers Article 26 as the only instrument to process cases of ESCER
ignores their interdependence and inter-relationship with civil and political rights.
11. This case perfectly demonstrates the need for a coherent and congruent protection not
only with regard to ESCER, but also from a consolidated analysis of the violations in
simultaneity with civil and political rights. I repeat that human rights can never be treated in
isolation, but rather as a group, because the complex reality requires an analysis that favors
their interdependence and inter-relationship. This case very clearly exemplifies this
confluence because it concerns the failure to execute a judgment, a component of access to
justice recognized in Articles 8 and 25. It not only has to do with a matter of access to justice,
but also access to justice of economic and social rights; the right to work in particular.
Therefore, we need a full analysis of this specific right that has, as one of its components, the
right to a salary (see Title II). Otherwise, to address the analysis only from the optic of access
to justice would be limiting, as if to solely concentrate on the work issue. When interpreting
and applying the Convention, the Court is, more than anything, a regional human rights court
and, as such, it must be able to understand the general panorama. It is, therefore, necessary
to address these infringements by taking into account the coexistence of various rights of the
victims that are, per se, indivisible and justiciable before this Court. Access to justice in this
case, as in several others already heard by the Court, will be a key to access to the other
rights. I note that the metaphor of the key does not mean that we are presenting a viewpoint
that restricts the direct justiciability of the right to work (or any other ESCER), but rather it
is a matter of justiciability in simultaneity due to the inter-relationship of the rights. I repeat
that we are not dealing with the thesis of connectivity, but rather simultaneity. Therefore, it
cannot be said that Article 19(6) of the Protocol of San Salvador is an impediment for the
Court to consider its joint violation.
12. In this case, Operating Paragraph No. 1 declared violations of Articles 8(1), 21, 25(1),
25(2)(c) and 26, read in conjunction with Article 1(1) of the Convention. I understand that
from the concept that I have endorsed on the interpretation and application of the Convention,
the right to work is justiciable in function of the coexistence of the violation of various rights
in the Convention, without the need to recur to justifications such as the autonomous
invocation of Article 26. That invocation, in my opinion, is unnecessary or at least superfluous.
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