27
must be one of the circumstances mentioned in the stated Article 87 present[, which]
must be legally supported and justified […].
[Finally, it requested that] the Amparo be granted in a single instance for this specific
case, that the related judgments be annulled and that the correction of the error be
ordered as of the procedural act appealed and that the first instance debate be repeated
without the mentioned violations.47
54(32) On November 21, 2000 the Constitutional Court, in its nature of an
Extraordinary Court of Amparo, denied the Amparo of June 9, 2000 in order to avoid
becoming a third instance prohibited by law.” In this regard, it considered that:
[…] In the present case, the appellant […] presented [the Amparo] when the thirty-day
term established […] in the Law on Amparo, Personal Exhibition, and Constitutionality
had expired. However, since it is a case in which the execution of the death penalty is
pending, the principle of preeminence of the Constitution, which imposes the obligation
to admit all appeals, must be applied […].
[…] This Court has repeatedly stated in its jurisprudence that the Amparo, due to its
subsidiary and extraordinary nature, cannot replace the ordinary legal protection,
because that would be a third instance prohibited by the Constitution.
[…] the substantiated criminal process was held and decided upon in observance of the
due process and the defendant’s right to a defense, in which he had the opportunity to
exercise his constitutional rights, having presented and being processed the regular and
extraordinary judicial remedies permitted by the Law on Criminal Procedures. […]
[…] to expect that the acts of the judicial bodies that intervened be restudied and that
the Court of Amparo issue a judgment with regard to the motives presented before said
bodies is a revision of the merits that […] must be solved by the courts […]48.
54(33) On November 28, 2000 the defense counsel of Mr. Fermín Ramírez presented
before the Second Court of Criminal Execution an “incidental plea of lack of
conclusiveness of the sentence” of March 6, 1998 that sentenced him to death, in
order to avoid the setting of the date and time for the execution of the sentence,
since the declaration of inadmissibility of the “special motions of appeal, appeals for
annulments, relief, review, and measure of grace, [presented by Mr. Fermín
Ramírez, and] persisting [the] violation to [his] right to a due process, it present[ed]
a complaint before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights so that it may,
as jurisdiction of the Guatemalan criminal courts, declare if there in fact was a
violation of the due process in [his] case, being said complaint in process.”49.
54(34) On December 22, the Second Court of Criminal Execution, declared the
incidental plea of lack of conclusiveness of the sentence inadmissible, due, inter alia,
to the following
the convicted party or his defense counsel should have presented certifications of the
documents offered in the initial memorial in order to analyze them, which was not done,
thus the purpose of the hearing was lost and not having any evidence to analyze or
assess the present incidental plea must be declared inadmissible. Regarding the request
made by the defense counsel to order discovery in the present incidental plea in order to
47
Cfr. Amparo presented on June 9, 2000 before the Constitutional Court (dossier of appendixes to
the petition, appendix 13, folios 132 and 134).
48
Cfr. Judgment of November 21, 2000 issued by the Constitutional Court (dossier of appendixes to
the petition, appendix 14, folios 143-150).
49
Cfr. Incidental plea of lack of conclusiveness of the sentence presented on November 28, 2000
before the Second Court of Criminal Execution (dossier of appendixes to the petition, appendix 15, folios
152-154).
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