32 beneficiaries) is governed by international law, none of which the respondent State may alter or decline to perform by relying on the provisions of its own domestic laws.111 69. What follows is a brief summation of the arguments made by the InterAmerican Commission and by the victims’ representatives on the question of reparations: The Commission’s arguments In its submissions, the Commission made the following petitions regarding reparations, court costs and expenses: 111 a) In the case of material damages, it reiterated that the Argentine Republic violated the right to due process in the Supreme Court proceedings that ended in the September 3, 1996 judgment by frustrating Mr. Cantos expectation that the Court would order performance of the agreement signed with the then Governor of Santiago del Estero; but it also violated his right to due process by ordering that Mr. Cantos pay court costs totaling approximately US$140.000.000,00 (one hundred forty million United States dollars); it also ordered a general attachment on Mr. Cantos’ assets and other encumbrances in exercise of the right of jurisdiction. Therefore, the State should “pay any and all fees ordered for experts [and] attorneys and pay the filing fee.” By reason of the foregoing, the Commission petitioned the Court to set the amount corresponding to material damages based on equity considerations. b) The Commission stated that the nonmaterial damages should factor in the mental anguish that Mr. José María Cantos and his family suffered. It should also consider “the repeated trips that [Mr.] Cantos made to Buenos Aires from Santiago del Estero, struggling with judicial and police harassment [and] with the consequences of having to leave the family home continually,” depriving him of his “family life plan.” The Commission also stated that “[t]he abuse of administrative as well as judicial complaints, all calculated to obstruct the original plaintiff, to secure fail-safe measures that would hurt him not just in terms of his assets but also in terms of his family, social and cultural life, necessarily translates into violations of the Convention” and, in particular, frustrated the life plan of Mr. Cantos and his family. Therefore, it considers US$100,000.00 (one hundred thousand United States dollars) to be an equitable sum. c) As for other forms of reparation, the Commission petitioned the Court to redress the consequences of the violations of Articles 8, 21 and 25 by ordering that any attachments or other encumbrances temporarily ordered against the property of Mr. Cantos be lifted, and that all personal information on Mr. Cantos on file with the corresponding public agencies be expunged so that no inaccurate or offending Cf. El Caracazo Case, Reparations, supra note 5, par. 77; Hilaire, Constantine and Benjamin et al. Case, supra note 5, par. 203; and Trujillo Oroza Case, Reparations, supra note 6, par. 61.

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