REPORT Nº 29/98
CASO 11.752
WALTER DAVID BULACIO
ARGENTINA
May 5, 1998
I.
BACKGROUND
1. On May 13, 1998, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter "the
Commission") received a complaint about the violation by the Republic of Argentina (the "State",
the Argentine State" or "Argentina") of the rights protected under the American Convention on
Human Rights (hereinafter the "American Convention") of Walter David Bulacio. Mr. Bulacio is
represented before the Commission by the Office for Coordination Against Police and Institutional
Repression (CORREPI); the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) and the Center for Justice
and International Law (CEJIL) (hereinafter "the petitioners"), who allege violation of Articles 4
(life); 5 (humane treatment); 7 (personal liberty); 8 (a fair trial); 25 (judicial protection), all of
them in relation to Article 1(1) of the American Convention on Human Rights.
II.
CONTEXT
2. On April 19, 1991, at approximately 11:00 p.m. during a planned police operation, the
Argentine Federal Police arrested 73 people because they were in the vicinity of the stadium of the
National Public Sanitation Works Club in Libertador Avenue, on the corner of Juana Azurduy
Street, in the city of Buenos Aires. This was "the site of a rock concert, for which all the tickets
had been sold out, which was the reason why these people remained there without justification".
According to the evidence, several of them were beaten by the police agents and, long before the
concert started, there was an important deployment of police on the site under the command of
Police Captain Miguel Angel Espósito, who was responsible for Police Station No. 35 with
jurisdiction in that area.
3.Although there were minors among those arrested, the Juvenile Correctional Judge on duty was
not informed of their arrest because, according to Police Captain Espósito’s report, he acted
unofficially applying Memorandum N° 40 of the Directorate of Judicial Affairs of the Federal Police,
which had been adopted on April 19, 1965.
4. Memorandum N° 40 partially contravened the provisions of Law Nº 10.903 enacted in 1919,
which regulates the Child Welfare Agency. This law expressly excludes police competence in the
area of juvenile misdemeanors and minor offenses; only the correctional judges assigned by the
law have competence in this area.
5. As a result of these facts, the State has invalidated Memorandum N° 40. Subsequently, the
Criminal Procedural Code was reformed, the 1994 National Constitution was enacted, and on
October 1st, 1996, the Constitution of the city of Buenos Aires entered into effect. Articles 10 and
13 of the latter guarantee individual liberty and, among other matters, prohibit officials from
taking declarations from detainees in the presence of police authorities, placing them in solitary
confinement, establishing the social danger without a crime, and placing those arrested for minor
offenses in preventive custody.
III.
FACTS DENOUNCED
6. According to the complaint, Walter Bulacio, 17 years of age, was arbitrarily arrested in the
vicinity of the stadium during a planned police operation on April 19, 1991, and taken to the
1