2 I INTRODUCTION OF THE CASE AND SUBJECT OF THE DISPUTE 1. On October 31, 2008, in accordance with the provisions of Articles 51 and 61 of the American Convention, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter “the Commission” or “the Inter-American Commission”) submitted an application to the Court against the State of Barbados (hereinafter “the State” or “Barbados”). The application originated from petition No. 12.645, presented by Messrs. Alair P. Shepherd Q.C. and M. Tariq Khan to the Secretariat of the Commission on December 29, 2006. On March 4, 2008, the Commission adopted Admissibility Report No. 7/08 and on July 25, 2008, it adopted Merits Report No. 60/08, pursuant to Article 50 of the Convention, in which it made certain recommendations to the State.2 Considering that the State had not adopted its recommendations, the Commission decided to submit this case to the jurisdiction of the Court on October 29, 2008, pursuant to Articles 51(1) of the Convention and 44 of the Commission’s Rules of Procedure. The Commission designated Commissioner Paolo Sergio Pinheiro and Mr. Santiago A. Canton, Executive Secretary of the Commission, as its Delegates in this case. Elizabeth Abi-Mershed, Deputy Executive Secretary of the Commission, and Mario López-Garelli, Ismene Zarifis, and Manuela Cuvi Rodríguez were appointed to serve as legal advisors. 2. In its application, the Commission requested that the Court declare Barbados responsible for imposing the mandatory death penalty on Mr. Tyrone DaCosta Cadogan “absent any consideration of the specific circumstances of the crime, and without any consideration for mitigating factors.” The Commission alleged that “[o]n May 18, 2005[,] the Supreme Court of Barbados found Mr. Tyrone DaCosta Cadogan guilty of murder and sentenced him to death by hanging, pursuant to Barbados’s Offences Against the Persons Act 1994, which prescribed capital punishment as the mandatory punishment for the crime of murder. As a consequence of a ‘savings’ clause in the Constitution of Barbados, the domestic courts cannot declare the mandatory death sentence to be invalid even though it violates fundamental rights protected under Barbados’s Constitution and the American Convention.” Consequently, the Commission requested that the Court declare the State responsible for the violations of Articles 4(1) and 4(2) (Right to Life), 5(1) and 5(2) (Right to Humane Treatment), and 8 (Right to a Fair Trial) of the American Convention on Human Rights, in relation to Articles 1(1) (Obligation to Respect Rights) and 2 (Domestic Legal Effects) thereof, to the detriment of Mr. Cadogan. Likewise, the Commission requested that the Court order corresponding reparations. 3. On January 16, 2009, the representatives of the alleged victim, Saul Lehrfreund M.B.E., Parvais Jabbar, Alair Shepherd Q.C., Douglas Mendes S.C., Tariq Khan, Ruth Brander, and Alison Gerry (hereinafter “the representatives”), submitted their written brief containing pleadings, motions, and evidence (hereinafter “the representatives’ brief”), in accordance with Article 24 of the Rules of Procedure. The representatives asked the Court to declare the violation of the same rights alleged by the Commission; they also claimed that the failure of the State to cause a comprehensive psychiatric examination of the alleged victim to be undertaken and made available for the purposes of the trial breached his right to a fair trial protected under Article 8 of the Convention and is cruel and inhuman, contrary to Article 5(1) and 5(2) thereof. Furthermore, the representatives requested the adoption of additional measures of reparation and the reimbursement of the expenses incurred in the processing of the case before the Court. 2 In the report, the Commission concluded that the State, “by imposing the mandatory death penalty on the [alleged] victim in this case, violated [his] rights under Articles 4(1), 4(2), 5(1) and 5(2), and 8 of the Convention[,] in connection with Articles 1(1) and 2 [thereof].”