CONCURRING OPINION OF JUDGE AD HOC ALEJANDRO CARLOS ESPINOSA
IN RELATION TO THE JUDGMENT OF THE INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF
HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE CASE OF FERNÁNDEZ ORTEGA ET AL. V. MEXICO,
OF AUGUST 30, 2010
1.
The present concurring vote is for the cited case ut supra as well as for the
case of Rosendo Cantú et al. v. Mexico in consideration of the following reasons:
a)
It deals with soldiers in service, namely agents of the State of
Mexico, that under special conditions committed grave violations of the
domestic and international legal codes, which should have been observed in
attention given their role as guarantors of the domestic legal system of the
State of Mexico and regarding the rights of their co-nationals;
b)
The passive subject [victim] of the crime of rape for whom this case
has unfolded, is a woman, poor, and indigenous, exposed to a high level of
vulnerability; apart from not speaking the Spanish language;
c)
The Code of Military Justice is similarly applied to investigate crimes
committed by soldiers and those in which civilian victims are found, in
attention to the provisions of Article 57, section II, subsection a) of the
mentioned legal code; that which was ordered modified in the case of Radilla
Pacheco v. México;
d)
The unfavorable circumstances for the victims in regard to georeferencing elements, access to justice, and health, as well as high
vulnerability are similar;
e)
The delay was extreme in the preliminary investigation of the
criminal procedure, and timely results by the various instances available in
the search for justice were not produced, and
f)
The victims underwent torturous paths to obtain access to justice.
2.
In this concurring opinion, I express my agreement with the logic of
motivation and argumentation, and therefore, with the content of the Judgment,
given the case analysis by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that provoked
the ruling in the case of Fernández Ortega et al. v. México, as well as with the
criteria and sums for reparation of harm detailed in the Judgment, due to their
nature and proportionality. I add in this statement, and in addition to the findings
held in the Judgment, my reasoning ad cautelam derived from specifics that I find
the State of Mexico should observe.
3.
As indicated by the American Convention on Human Rights, the subsidiary
nature of the Inter-American jurisdiction of human rights, in contrast to the
domestic jurisdiction, is fundamental, given that it enhances and compliments that
provided in the domestic laws of the American States; as such, I consider that the
appropriate interpretation of Article 13 of the Constitution of the United Mexican
States should harmonize not only Article 57, section II, subsection a) of the Code of
Military Justice, but also the provisions enshrined in subsections b), c), d), and e),
of the indicated normative instrument.
4.
Despite the structural and normative weaknesses presented in the Code of
Military Justice, which dates back to 1933, it should be noted that the State of
Mexico was willing to investigate the case institutionally, but it is also evident that it
did not go beyond carrying out routine procedures knowing that the facts would not
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