DISSENTING OPINION OF
JUDGE MONTIEL-ARGÜELLO
1.
I am dissatisfied with some of the assertions, assessments, and arguments
made in the Judgment in so far as they concern violations of the American
Convention; although, I consider it unnecessary to enter into each one in detail in
such a complex case, except when they lead to conclusions contrary to those that
have been approved.
2.
I voted in favor of all the operative paragraphs, save those relating to the
double jeopardy of Ms. María Elena Loayza-Tamayo (Article 8(4) of the Convention)
and to the order for her release. The reasons that induced me to vote against the
decision of the Court on those two points are explained below.
3.
While it is true that the judgment delivered by the Plenary Court of the
Special Supreme Military Tribunal on September 24, 1993, upheld María Elena
Loayza's acquittal of the crime of Treason, that phrase cannot be interpreted
literally and out of context.
4.
If the phrase had been used to signify that the accused had not committed
the acts for which she was tried in the military courts, it would constitute a trial
that would impede any subsequent trial in the civil jurisdiction.
5.
While it is also true that the aforesaid judgment does not explicitly state the
grounds on which she was "acquitted," they may be easily deduced from the
remainder of the principal clause containing the word "acquittal."
6.
Indeed, the remainder of the operative sentence reads as follows:
María Elena Loayza-Tamayo is acquitted of the crime of Treason, and
there being evidence of the commission of the crime of terrorism,
orders the case file to be remitted to the civil jurisdiction, and the
defendant to be placed in the custody of the competent authority.
7.
It is clear from the above that what the Military Tribunal decided in its
verdict was not that María Elena Loayza-Tamayo had not committed the acts
attributed to her, but that those acts did not constitute the crime of Treason and
that the tribunal lacked jurisdiction to try the crime of terrorism, which was the
province of other courts.
8.
The fact that in other cases the courts relinquished jurisdiction, which would
be technically correct, does not alter the interpretation that must be given to its
ruling in the instant Case. Nor is that interpretation altered by the fact that the
ruling found that there was "no civil liability," since that, too, would require that the
alleged acts do not fall within the jurisdiction of the court.
9.
In the light of the foregoing, the military courts cannot be said to have tried
María Elena Loayza-Tamayo, but rather, merely provided a juridical classification of
the acts imputed to her, and, finding that they did not constitute the crime which it
had jurisdiction to try, refrained from so doing and remitted the file to the civil
courts which did have that jurisdiction.
10.
The fact that the case was tried in the civil courts, which found the