2 6. In my view, there is a relevant difference between a right or guarantee (for the sake of the matter it is not necessary to distinguish between the two terms) to a competent tribunal as recognized in paragraph 1 and the various minimum guarantees stated in paragraph 2. The intervention of a competent, independent and impartial judge is of course an assumption of due process. If it is absent, there is no real process, but a mere appearance of one. It would only be a simple process, which would not fulfill the essential right of the accused. It is not possible to assume that he or she can be tried and to have the dispute resolved by any person or office lacking these attributes, and that the procedure by which they are subjected deserves to be ranked as a process and the resolution by which the process concludes, constitutes an true judgment. 7. The Inter-American Court has so understood or implied as it examines the process followed before a body that lacks subject-matter and personal jurisdiction necessary to hear and to judgment; for example, a military tribunal which resolves controversies beyond its scope or if it pronounces judgments on individuals who are not active members of the armed forces. On such cases, the Court has issued the invalidity of the procedure and cleared the door that leads to a true process. Therefore there is no infringement of Res Judicata –which was not produced – and neither of the double jeopardy prohibition for the same facts or the same crimes –because the first process was not an authentic procedure at mercy of the ne bis in idem formula. 8. If in a proceeding all the guarantees indicated in Article 8(2) of the American Convention had been observed, but not the guarantee of a competent tribunal encompassed in paragraph 1 of said Article, it would not be understood that due process existed nor would it be accepted that its culmination constituted a definitive judgment. The denial would stem from the fact that all the actions were carried out by a body that did not meet the conditions of Article 8(1), an irremediable defect. Lets say, for example, that the dependant boday, partial and incompetent permits the defendant the time and means to prepare his defense. Having done this does not then give this body the capacity to resolve the controversy nor doe it dismerit the violation to Article 8(1). To briefly state, the defendant was not heard by he who was designated to hear him. 9. The same would not result, if in turn, the points of paragaph 1 of the cited concepts are satisfied, but the guarantees encompassed in paragraph 2 are then placed in a vulnerable position. If that were to occur, replacement of acts and stages of the proceeding would be admissible, perhaps before the same jurisdictional authority which saw the case, with a condition that the cause is transmitted with strict adherence to the guarantees originally unattended, in the means that this be legally necessary or possible. Lets suppose, for example, that the defendant was not afforded the opportunity and the means for a defense. Its possible, in principle, that the all or part of the proceedings be repeated in order to satisfy the defendants right to a defense. Also, to briefly state, the defendant may have been heard, but not in the way he should have been heard, this would imply a need to rectify the formula applied, not necessarily to do away with the tribunal. 10. This being the case, when a competent tribunal does not interfere, but rather the case is assumed by another organ which lacks the proper characteristics to handle the case, the Inter-American Court can declare that there was no due process, given a failure of an essential nature, and that no actions taken in such conditions could have produced the legal effects which were thrown out—namely, the efficiency it would have –if it had been met before a judge fully capable of reviewing the cause. As such, it is not necessary to declare the violation of other procedural guarantees. All the issues are dealt with from the start of