I INTRODUCTION OF THE CASE AND CAUSE OF THE ACTION 1. The case submitted to the Court. On November 28, 2014, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter “the Inter-American Commission” or “the Commission”) submitted to the Inter-American Court case No. 12,820 Manfred Amrhein et al. v. Costa Rica. According to the Commission, the case relates to the alleged international responsibility of Costa Rica for its failure to provide a remedy that would allow for a comprehensive review of the criminal convictions of seventeen individuals. It is alleged that, under the criminal procedural framework in force at the time of these convictions, the existing remedy was the petition for a writ of reversal on cassation (recurso de casación), which was limited to matters of law and excluded the possibility of reviewing matters of fact and evidence. It is further alleged that the two legislative reforms adopted by the State subsequent to these judgments also failed to guarantee the alleged victims the right to appeal their convictions, inasmuch as the mechanisms offered to persons with final convictions prior to these reforms suffered from the same limitations. Moreover, it is claimed that, with respect to some of the alleged victims, the State violated the right to judicial guarantees within the framework of the criminal proceedings against them, the right to personal liberty due to the illegality and unreasonable duration of their pretrial detention and the right to personal integrity due to the poor conditions of detention at the prison where they were held. 2. The alleged victims in this case are: 1 • Group 1: Manfred Amrhein Pinto, Ronald Fernández Pinto, Carlos Osborne Escalante, Carlos Manuel González Lizano and Arturo Fallas Zúñiga; • Group 2: Rafael Rojas Madrigal; • Group 3: Luis Archbold Jay, Enrique Floyd Archbold Jay, Carlos Eduardo Yepes Cruz, Fernando Saldarriaga Saldarriaga, and Miguel Antonio Valverde Montoya; • Group 4: Jorge Martínez Meléndez; • Group 5: Guillermo Rodríguez Silva and Martín Rojas Hernández; • Group 6: Manuel Adilio Hernández Quesada; • Group 7: Miguel Mora Calvo, and • Group 8: Damas Vega Atencio 3. Procedure before the Commission. The procedure before the Commission was as follows: a) Petition. Between March 2004 and November 2006, the Commission received eight petitions in respect of seventeen alleged victims. 2 In the instant case, the Court uses the division of alleged victims into groups given by the Commission. In addition, each group was assigned a number to facilitate the identification of their classification throughout the judgment. 2 The eight petitions submitted are: 1) Petition P 233-04, submitted on March 24, 2004 by Human Rights for the Americas (HR Americas) and Servicios Interamericanos de Profesionales en Rights Humanos. Cf. Petition respect of Manfred Amrhein and others (evidence file, folio 13738); 2) Petition P 669-04, submitted on July 29, 2004 by Rafael Antonio Rojas Madrigal. Cf. Petition regarding Rafael Antonio Rojas Madrigal (evidence file, folio 8601); 3) Petition P 1256-06, submitted on November 14, 2006 by Carlos Eduardo Yepes Cruz. Cf. Petition regarding Carlos Eduardo Yepes Cruz and others (evidence file, folio 4801); 4) Petition P 1083-06, submitted on October 11, 2006 by Ricardo Barahona Montero. Cf. Petition regarding Jorge Alberto Martínez Meléndez (evidence file, folio 3249); 5) Petition P 1111-06, submitted on October 18, 2006 by Guillermo Rodríguez Silva and Martín Rojas Hernández. Cf. Petition regarding Guillermo Rodríguez Silva and Martín Rojas Hernández (evidence file, folio 4240); 6) Petition P 587-05, submitted on May 24, 2005 by Manuel Hernández Quesada. Cf. Petition regarding 1 6