entity El Universo, were condemned for the commission of the crime of serious slanderous insult against the authority, in accordance with the interpretation of the Criminal Code then in force in Ecuador. 87. Article 489 of the Criminal Code in force at the moment of issuing the judgment, prescribed the following: "insult is: slanderous, when it consists in the false imputation of a crime; and, not slanderous, when it consists in any other expression uttered in discredit, dishonor, or disparagement of another person, or in any action executed for the same purpose". Article 490 of the same legal body states that "non-slanderous insults are serious or minor: serious are: [...] imputations that rationally deserve the classification of serious, given the state, dignity, and circumstances of the victim and the offender [...]". Then, article 491 states that "the inmate of slanderous insult shall be punished with imprisonment from six months to two years and a fine of six to twenty-five dollars from the United States of North America, when the accusations have been made: [...] by means of writings, printed or not, images or emblems fixed, distributed, or sold, offered for sale, or exposed to the eyes of the public [...]". Finally, article 493 states that "it shall be punished with one to three years of imprisonment and a fine of six to twenty-five dollars from the United States of America, those that have addressed to the authority accusations that constitute slanderous insult. If the accusations made to the authority constitute non-slanderous but serious insults, the penalties shall be imprisonment from six months to two years and a fine of six to nineteen dollars of the United States of North America". 88. In the specific case, these three articles have been interpreted by the Ecuadorian courts as a criminal offense of "serious slanderous insults against public authority”109. 89. As stated above, the Inter-American Court in the Kimel v. Argentina case, concluded that the criminalization of libel and insult offenses violated articles 13 and 9 of the American Convention, in relation to articles 1.1 and 2110, because they were formulated in a manner ambiguous and broad. Likewise, in the case of Usón Ramírez v. Venezuela, the IACHR determined that a criminal offense referred to the "insult, offense, or disregard of the national armed forces", which did not clearly establish the elements of the crime, and did not specify the required fraud by the active subject, allowing the subjectivity of the offended person to determine the existence of a crime, violated articles 9 and 13 of the American Convention, in relation to articles 1.1 and 2111. In this regard, it considered that the ambiguity and breadth of the rule allows any complaint, criticism, or objection to the actions of public authorities to give rise to long criminal proceedings that in themselves involved psychological, social, and economic costs that the person is not in the obligation to stand given the ambiguous nature of the norm that establishes them112. Consequently, it reiterated that "if the State decides to keep the regulations that sanction insult and libel, it must specify it in such a way that freedom of expression is not affected based on the actions of public bodies and their members”113. 90. The IACHR understands that Article 489 of the Ecuadorian Penal Code applied to the case was incompatible with the principle of strict criminal legality and the right to freedom of expression, because it did not establish clear parameters that would allow the prohibited conduct and its elements to be foreseen. In its first hypothesis, it sanctions "the false imputation of a crime" and the seriousness refers to the "dignity" of the victim and to his or her position of "authority". This formulation does not establish a clear and unambiguous frontier to determine when it is lawful or not to publicly denounce criminal acts or to issue a critical opinion regarding a state authority. On the contrary, the indetermination of the norm opens the way to the use of The State, in its observations on the merits, says: "On March 21, 2011, Rafael Correa Delgado, brought before the Judge of Criminal Guarantees of Guayas, a private accusation against the Company `El Universo, 'and Emilio Palacio Urrutia, Carlos Nicolás Pérez Lapentti, Carlos Eduardo Pérez Barriga, and César Enrique Pérez Barriga, for the alleged crime of serious slanderous insults against public authorities, a criminal offense that was established in articles 48910 and 49311 of the Ecuadorian Criminal Code." 109 The Court analyzed the formulation of Article 109, which provided that "insult or false accusation of an offense that gives rise to public action, shall be punished with imprisonment of one to three years," and Article 110, which provided that "he who dishonors or discredits another shall be punished with a fine of one thousand five hundred pesos to ninety thousand pesos or imprisonment from one month to one year," and found that "the deficient criminal regulation of this matter" in the configuration of the crime constituted a violation of Articles 9 and 13.1 of the American Convention. I/A Court H.R., I/A Court H.R., Case of Kimel v. Argentina. Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of May 2, 2008 Series C No. 177, paras. 64-67. 110 I/A Court H.R., Case of Usón Ramírez v. Venezuela. Preliminary Objection, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of November 20, 2009. Series C No. 207, paras. 56-57. 111 112 IACHR, Report No. 88/10, Case 12.661, Merits, Néstor José and Luís Uzcátegui et al., Venezuela, July 14, 2010, para. 279. Arguments of the Inter-American Commission in the Kimel v. Case Argentina, I/A Court H.R., Case of Kimel v. Argentina. Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of May 2, 2008 Series C No. 177, para. 29. 113 20