44
transport to Guatemala City and food during about 20 days in the city);
Q7,500.00 (seven thousand five hundred quetzales) for funeral expenses and
transport to the capital city to this end, and Q800.00 (eight hundred
quetzales) for medical consultations for two members of the family, for a total
of Q14,100.00 (fourteen thousand one hundred quetzales). They also
included the patrimonial damage to the household that affected his parents
and also his wife and son, because the victim was responsible for supporting
the latter financially and from time to time sent money to the former. Finally,
they added the loss of the victim’s documents and personal effects such as a
gold medal and clothes.
The Commission’s arguments
113. In its briefs of August 31, 1998, and August 2, 1999, the Commission
indicated the following under the general heading of “pecuniary damage”:
a)
regarding the loss of earnings of Julián Salomón Gómez Ayala, that the
life expectancy for a man in Guatemala was 45.59 additional years; that the
victim was working as a mechanic at the time of the facts and that his
companion, his son “of two and half years of age” and his mother, to whom
he provided financial assistance, depended on his income. In its first brief,
the Commission indicated that, according to International Labor Organization
data, a worker in the transport sector would have had a monthly wage of
Q266.66 (two hundred and sixty-six quetzales with sixty-six cents) in 1987,
and, therefore, requested compensation of US$30,528.74 (thirty thousand
five hundred and twenty-eight United States dollars and seventy-four cents).
However, in its second brief, the Commission endorsed the calculation of
earnings claimed by the victim’s next of kin and adjusted them to the criteria
established by this Court; for example, deduction of 25% for personal use,
calculation of interest and of the current value of the corresponding amounts;
and
b)
with regard to the other expenses, in its first brief, the Commission
indicated that the victim’s mother and companion searched for him for 12
days, and on the following day the body appeared and was buried in
Guatemala City, so that his mother had to obtain a judicial order to exhume
the body and transfer the remains to “Suchitepéquez”, which involved
expenses of Q4,000.00 (four thousand quetzales); the next of kin also
incurred expenditures of Q7,000.00 (seven thousand quetzales) for various
funeral expenses.
Lastly, the Commission claimed that the victim was
wearing a gold medal at the time of the facts, and the value of this should be
reimbursed. In its second brief, the Commission endorsed the calculations
and figures submitted by the victim’s next of kin.
The State’s arguments
114. The State contested the claims and calculations made by the next of kin of
Julián Salomón Gómez Ayala and the Commission, observing the following, among
other matters:
a)
with regard to the loss of earnings of the victim, it claimed that,
according to his identity card, he worked as a farm laborer and, owing to the
inexistence of information on the income earned by the victim, the minimum
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