3
3.
On January 12, 2011, under the provisions of Article 68(2) of the Rules of
Procedure and on the instructions of the President of the Court, the Secretariat of the
Court (hereinafter also “the Secretariat”) sent a copy of the request for interpretation
to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter also “the InterAmerican Commission” or “the Commission”) and to the Organización del Pueblo
Indígena Tlapaneco/Me´phaa (OPIM) [Tlapaneco/Me´phaa Indigenous Peoples
Organization], the Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña “Tlachinollan”
[Tlachinollan” Mountain Human Rights Center] and the Center for Justice and
International Law (CEJIL) (all hereinafter “the representatives”) giving them until
February 11, 2011, to submit any written arguments they considered pertinent.
4.
On February 11, 2011, the Inter-American Commission submitted its written
arguments on the request for interpretation, and considered “the State’s assertions
and conclusions inadmissible and irreceivable,” because the State was not asking the
Court to interpret the meaning or scope of the ruling, but rather it was seeking a
revision and reconsideration of the final and non-appealable judgment because it
disagreed with the decisions therein. The Commission also indicated that the State
had the opportunity to litigate the issues on which it had requested interpretation at
the appropriate procedural moment, and that there were no grounds for reopening
the discussion.
5.
On February 11, 2011, the representatives forwarded their written arguments
and asked the Court to declare the request for interpretation inadmissible. They
argued that: (a) the State was attempting to modify the Court’s judgment by asking
it to address factual and legal issues that had been brought up during the analysis of
the merits of the case and specifically decided in the judgment, and (b) there was no
reasonable doubt with regard to the meaning and scope of the aspects about which
the interpretation was requested. In addition, they considered that the State was
trivializing the proven facts and, consequently, weakening the operative paragraphs
of the judgment, resulting in a lack of compliance with them.
II
COMPETENCE AND COMPOSITION OF THE COURT
6.
Article 67 of the Convention establishes that:
The judgment of the Court shall be final and not subject to appeal. In case of
disagreement as to the meaning or scope of the judgment, the Court shall interpret it at
the request of any of the parties, provided the request is made within ninety days from
the date of notification of the judgment.
7.
Pursuant to this article, the Court has competence to interpret its judgments.
In order to examine the request for interpretation and to rule on it, in accordance
with Article 68(3) of the Rules of Procedure, the Court must, if possible, have the
intervention of the military justice system in this type of case does not refer merely to the act of
prosecution, which is the responsibility of a court, but essentially to the investigation itself, because this
procedure constitutes the beginning and the necessary grounds for the subsequent intervention of an
incompetent court. Based on the above, the Court finds that the State violated the rights to judicial
guarantees and to judicial protection established in Articles 8(1) and 25(1) of the American Convention, in
relation to Article 1(1) thereof, to the detriment of Mrs. Fernández Ortega. As it has in previous cases […],
when it has found that the military criminal jurisdiction is not competent, the Court considers that it is not
necessary to rule on the other arguments concerning the independence and impartiality of the military
justice system or the possible violation, based on the same facts, under other Inter-American instruments.