submitted within the following 30 days. On August 7, 2002, the State requested a 30-day
extension for submitting its reply. On August 9, 2002, the Commission granted this extension
but to date, the State has not furnished any further information.
III.
A.
POSITIONS OF THE PARTIES REGARDING ADMISSIBILITY
Petitioner
6.
On October 26, 1992, the Council of Superior Officers, through a secret
committee set up by Commanding Admiral of the Navy Jezid Jaramillo, resolved to discharge
Mr. Grijalva from the service on allegations of bad conduct. Mr. Grijalva maintains that his
discharge was based on false evidence and claims that Capt. Fausto Morales Villota, the
assistant director of the Intelligence Service, produced false documents to incriminate him
and another group of seamen in alleged irregularities in the port of Bolívar.
7.
On November 19, 1993, Commanding Admiral of the Navy Oswaldo Viteri
ordered the law judge of the First Naval Zone, Rear Admiral Hugo Cañate Jalón, to begin legal
action against Mr. Grijalva, even though the First Naval Zone’s investigating judge ruled that
there were no grounds for a criminal trial. On November 29, 1993, the commanding officer of
the First Naval Zone, Hugo Cañarte, ordered the First Naval Zone’s military criminal judge to
begin summary proceedings. On November 30, 1993, criminal judge Pablo Burgos Cuenca
opened the summary proceeding; the prosecuting officer was Dr. Ramiro Cruz Mayorga, the
Third Naval Zone’s prosecutor, who had, in conjunction with Third Zone judge Carlos Romero,
covered up the crimes committed in the case of Stalin Bolaños (the case that Mr. Grijalva had
reported to his superiors).
8.
In this trial Mr. Vicente Grijalva was convicted in a military court, on the basis
of the same accusations and evidence that led to his discharge. The judge at this trial was
Capt. Shuber Barriga Chiriboga, a lawyer who had previously ruled that the death of Stalin
Bolaños was due to alcoholic poisoning, thereby completely exonerating the individual
responsible (Fausto Morales).
9.
On October 19, 1998, the First Naval Zone’s Law Court opened the plenary
session and Mr. Grijalva was criminally charged before military courts (his earlier discharge
notwithstanding) with the crime of abuse of authority, based on the same incidents that had
led to his dismissal from the service. On March 13, 2000, presiding judge Admiral Fernando
Donoso Morán handed down a conviction against Mr. Grijalva. On March 13, 2001, the Court
of Military Justice issued a judgment upholding Mr. Grijalva’s abuse of authority conviction.
10.
On September 8, 1994, Mr. Grijalva asked the Court of Constitutional
Guarantees–the supreme authority on matters related to human rights and constitutional
guarantees–to analyze his discharge from the navy. On September 12, 1995, the Court of
Constitutional Guarantees ordered the navy to reinstate Mr. Grijalva and another eight
sergeants who had also been discharged from the service because the dismissal procedures
had failed to respect their right of defense. The provisions of that resolution have still not
been enforced.
B.
State
11.
In its initial reply, the State gave an overview of the history of Mr. Grijalva’s
case before the Ecuadorian courts; it also stated that the appropriate and effective domestic
remedies for resolving the petitioner’s legal situation had not yet been exhausted since there
was still an outstanding criminal case against Mr. Grijalva for allegedly collecting illicit sums