143. The Court must determine, in light of the facts of the instant case, whether the civil
proceedings for damages and the subsequent collection of the compensation exceeded the
reasonable term. For this purpose it shall first determine the period of time that it will
consider for the analysis.
C.1) Time frame of the proceedings
Arguments of the parties and of the Inter-American Commission
144. The Commission argued that there was “an unwarranted delay in the suit for
damages, which took ten years until the final judgment was rendered, and then another two
years until the award in bonds was credited.”
145. The representatives argued that “to determine the reasonableness of the term to
obtain an effective judicial response it is necessary to add the time that it took for the bonds
in favor of Sebastián Furlan to become available,” given that there was “a delay in the
administrative process for executing the title documents of the bonds.” They indicated that
“over 1 year and 9 months elapsed” from the time of the request for collection of the bonds
until their final receipt, and they claimed that during this time “they followed a bureaucratic
administrative process, plagued with unwarranted delays and characterized by the exclusive
participation of the State’s administrative bodies.”
146. The State did not refer specifically to the length of time that the Court should take
into account for the analysis of the reasonable term.
Considerations of the Court
147. The Court confirms that on December 18, 1990 Mr. Danilo Furlan filed suit in the civil
courts against the State of Argentina (supra para. 78), and that these proceedings ended
with the judgment of first instance issued on September 7, 2000 (supra para. 99). This
judicial decision was upheld on appeal through the ruling of November 23, 2000 by the First
Chamber of the National Court of Federal Civil and Federal Commercial Matters (supra para.
101).
148. The Court also notes that, once the final judgment was rendered, the alleged victim
had to begin an administrative proceeding to obtain the indemnity ordered by the court. To
this end, on June 7, 2001 Sebastián Furlan’s representative initiated a process before the
General Accounting Department of the Argentinean Army the steps to obtain the
compensation (supra para. 104), which ended on March 12, 2003 with the payment of the
bonds to the beneficiary (supra para. 105). In this regard, the Court notes that the civil
proceedings for damages lasted 9 years, 11 months and 5 days until the final judgment,
which was followed by the enforcement phase of the judgment in order to obtain the
compensation awarded in the judicial decision. The latter stage lasted 1 year, 9 months and
7 days until effective payment of the compensation.
149. Regarding the enforcement phase of judicial decisions, this Court has recognized that
the failure to enforce judgments “is directly related to the effective judicial protection for the
enforcement of domestic decisions:”290 consequently, it has made its analysis in light of
290
Cf. Case of Mejía Idrovo v. Ecuador, para. 84.
49
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