2.
On March 5, 2013, the Republic of Guatemala (hereinafter “Guatemala” or “the State”)
presented a brief in which it “state[d] its position” of “disagreement” with the Judgment. On
March 20 and 25, 2013, the representatives and the Inter-American Commission presented their
observations on the State’s brief.
3.
On March 20, 2013, the representatives filed a request for interpretation of the Judgment
because they had “found contradictions and a lack of precision in relation to the payment of
financial compensation to the victims and their next of kin.” In particular, the representatives
requested clarification of the method for paying the loss of earnings and non-pecuniary damages
ordered in the Judgment in favor of the disappeared victims and their next of kin, and of the time
frame for paying the compensation established in the said decision.
4.
On April 1, 2013, in accordance with Article 68(2) of the Court’s Rules of Procedure and
on the instructions of the President of the Court, the Secretariat forwarded the said request for
interpretation to the State and the Commission and gave them until May 1, 2013, to present any
written arguments they deemed pertinent.
5.
On April 30, 2013, the Commission and the State presented their written arguments
concerning the said request for interpretation.
II
COMPETENCE
6.
Article 67 of the Convention establishes that:
The judgment of the Court shall be final and not subject to appeal. In case of disagreement as to the
meaning or scope of the judgment, the Court shall interpret it at the request of any of the parties,
provided the request is made within ninety days from the date of notification of the judgment.
7.
According to this article, the Court is competent to interpret its judgments. In order to
examine the request for interpretation and take the corresponding decisions, the Court should be
composed, whenever possible, of the judges who delivered the respective Judgment, pursuant to
Article 68(3) of the Rules of Procedure. On this occasion, the Court is mainly composed of the
judges who handed down the Judgment whose interpretation has been requested by the
representatives (supra footnote ¡Error! Marcador no definido.).
III
THE BRIEF OF THE STATE OF MARCH 5, 2013, AND SIMILAR ARGUMENTS IN
THE STATE’S BRIEF OF APRIL 30, 2013
8.
The Court observes that, within the 90-day period established in the Convention for filing
a request for interpretation, the State presented a brief “indicating its disagreement with the […]
Court’s interpretation of the reservation it had opportunely made when accepting the Court’s
contentious jurisdiction,” because “the facts that gave rise to the dispute in this case exceed the
temporal competence of the […] Court”; consequently, it did “not accept the judgment delivered
in the case of the Diario Militar.” In particular, the State indicated: (i) its disagreement with the
facts of this case being categorized as forced disappearance, because this would entail the
retroactive application of the pertinent norms; (ii) the alleged impossibility of condemning the
State for the offense of forced disappearance, because it constitutes a crime and, as such, is
committed by a person and must be determined by a criminal court; (iii) its disagreement with
considering the crime of forced disappearance permanent; (iv) the irrelevance for the
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