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98.
Arguments of the Commission
The Inter-American Commission requested the Court to reject “summarily” this
objection, because:
(a)
“No legal grounds for this claim can be inferred from the arguments
made by the State”; and
(b)
Article 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court establishes that,
when filing preliminary objections, the State must set out “the facts on which
the objection is based, the legal arguments, and the conclusions and supporting
documents, as well as any evidence which the party filing the objection may
wish to produce.”
99.
Arguments of the representatives of the alleged victims
The representatives indicated that this objection was not of a preliminary nature,
requested the Court to reject it, and stated that:
a)
The Commission and the representatives seek “a ruling of the InterAmerican Court on the violations of the human rights of the candidates
proposed by YATAMA for the 2000 municipal elections and, should the Court so
decide, the adaptation of domestic laws to the American Convention.” This is
very clear from the text of the application and from the representative’s brief
with requests and arguments;
b)
The violation of the human rights of the alleged victims is not being
claim owing merely to the existence of the Electoral Act, “but rather, they have
indicated specific actions that violated the rights of duly identified individuals,
and also the existence and absence of norms that directly affect them, by not
protecting their rights; and
c)
The Court has ordered several States to adapt their domestic laws to the
Convention. “The State itself incurs international responsibility and not just one
of its branches of government.”
Considerations of the Court
100. The application and the brief with requests and arguments do not set out a
request for “abstract revision of the compatibility of domestic law with the American
Convention.” The Commission indicated that the State should be declared responsible
for specific acts and omissions in relation to the alleged exclusion of the YATAMA
candidates in the RAAN and the RAAS from the 2000 municipal elections, and
sustained that the Electoral Act that was applied did not guarantee the right to political
participation of the indigenous organizations in the Autonomous Regions of the Atlantic
Coast of Nicaragua according to the values, practices and customs of their members.
The determination of this responsibility constitutes the grounds for this dispute.
101. The substance of the dispute in this case is not for the Court to determine
whether or not YATAMA complied with the domestic electoral norms (supra para.
97(b)), but rather whether Nicaragua has violated the international obligations it