- 113 -
Therefore, the Court considers that the State violated the obligation to respect and to ensure,
without discrimination, the rights contained in the American Convention (Article 1(1)), and recalls
that the State has acknowledged the violation of the right to equality before the law recognized in
Article 24 of the Convention.
B.4 General conclusion
318. Based on the above and in light of the acknowledgement made by the State, the Court
concludes that the State violated the rights to judicial guarantees and to judicial protection,
recognized in Articles 8(1) and 25(1) of the American Convention on Human Rights, in relation to
the general obligations contained in Articles 1(1) and 2 of this instrument, and Article 7 of the
Convention of Belém do Pará, as well as Articles 1, 6 and 8 of the Inter-American Convention
against Torture, and recalls that the State acknowledged the violation of Article 24 of the
Convention, to the detriment of Yolanda Muñoz Diosdada, Norma Aidé Jiménez Osorio, María
Patricia Romero Hernández, Mariana Selvas Gómez, Georgina Edith Rosales Gutiérrez, Ana María
Velasco Rodríguez, Suhelen Gabriela Cuevas Jaramillo, Bárbara Italia Méndez Moreno, María
Cristina Sánchez Hernández, Angélica Patricia Torres Linares and Claudia Hernández Martínez.
IX-4
RIGHT TO PERSONAL INTEGRITY427 OF THE NEXT OF KIN, IN RELATION TO THE
OBLIGATION TO RESPECT AND TO ENSURE THESE RIGHTS
A. Arguments of the parties and of the Commission
319. The Commission alleged that the egregious nature of the facts that occurred and the
situation of impunity due to the absence of a “prompt judicial response,” had violated the
personal integrity of the victims’ next of kin. The representatives agreed with the Commission’s
allegation concerning the violation of Article 5(1) of the Convention to the detriment of the family
members of the eleven presumed victims, and described the specific effects on the members of
each family unit. In general, they determined that several aspects of the life projects of the family
groups were affected. Many of the members were obliged to abandon their studies or their jobs,
to sell some of their possession to cover the expenses entailed by the judicial proceedings, and to
make a significant economic effort in order to travel to where the victims were detained in order
to visit them or to provide them with basic items for subsistence inside the prison. In their final
written arguments, the representatives reiterated the arguments they had presented at previous
stages and added “further details of the effects that the facts of this case had had on the victims’
next of kin, based on the new evidence produced.” The State acknowledged its international
responsibility for the “violation of the right to personal integrity, recognized in Article 5(1) in
relation to Article 1(1) of the American Convention, to the detriment of the victims’ next of kin as
a result of what the victims had suffered.”
B. Considerations of the Court
320. The Court has indicated on numerous occasions that the next of kin of the victims of human
rights violations may also, in turn, be victims. 428 In this regard, the Court has indicated that it is
Article 5(1) of the Convention establishes that: “1. Every person has the right to have his physical, mental, and moral
integrity respected.”
427
Cf. Case of Castillo Páez v. Peru. Merits. Judgment of November 3, 1997. Series C No. 34, fourth operative
paragraph, and Case of López Soto et al. v. Venezuela. Merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of September 26, 2018.
Series C No. 362, para. 262.
428