19
cases of the "Street Children " (Villagrán Morales et al.) v. Guatemala [reparations, 2001], and
of Bulacio v. Argentina [2003], followed by others, the Court has welcomed my reasoning in
the sense of giving legal acknowledgement to the expansion of the notion of victim.
66.
The Court has correctly considered as injured parties not only the direct victims of the
violation of the right to life (the tortured and executed or missing victims), but also their next
of kin, direct victims - lato sensu – of the violation to the right to humane treatment, and as
such beneficiaries of reparations, by their own right.59 In the same line of reasoning, admitting
the expansion of the notion of victims, in the recent cycle of the cases of massacres, the Court
has considered as “victims” or “injured parties” the people that have a relationship with the
facts described in the application, as well as the evidence presented or produced before it.60
67.
The previously mentioned cases of massacres, solved by the Inter-American Court
have, in a certain sense, in my understanding, effectively transcended the distinction between
direct and indirect victims, in favor of an expansion of the notion of direct victim itself. Thus,
the next of kin of the direct victims as a result of the violation to their right to life (i.e., the
next of kin of murdered or massacred victims), also become, as a direct consequence of the
violent death of their loved ones, direct victims by virtue of the violation of their own right to
humane treatment (mental and moral integrity of the next of kin), followed by the violation of
their right to access justice and the guarantees of the due legal process.61
68.
Just like the list of the direct victims of the violation to the right to life is left open, in
recent cases of massacres of great complexity (cf. supra), the list of direct victims of the
violation to the right to humane treatment (the next of kin of those) may under certain
circumstances be left open, as long as there are great difficulties for a prompt identification.
This is the point of view that an international human rights court must adopt, different from
the usual modus operandi of national criminal courts. Here the continued expansion, and not
the restriction, of the condition of victim under the American Convention of Human Rights
prevails.
69.
Jurisprudential evolution in this sense is comprehensible and promising: finally, the
reaction of the Law to its violations in detriment of human beings is proportional to the gravity
of the facts, of the violations to the rights protected. I hope that these reflections de lege
ferenda can help the Court to promptly take up again this jurisprudential construction and that
it may know how to extract from it the experience in order to always respond, each time with a
greater effectiveness, to possible grave and recurrent violations to human rights and fight
impunity, thus avoiding that they repeat themselves.
V.
Epilogue: Final Considerations.
.
Cf., v.g., inter alia, CtIADH, Sentencia de reparaciones en el caso de los "Niños de la Calle"
(Villagrán Morales y Otros, 2001), párr. 68.
59
.
Cf. also in this regard, v.g., inter alia, the Judgments of the Court in the cases of Goiburú et al. v.
Paraguay (of 07.22.2006), para. 29; of the massacres of Ituango v. Colombia (of 07.01.2006), para. 91;
of the massacre of Mapiripán v. Colombia (of 09.15.2005), para. 183; of Acevedo Jaramillo et al. v. Peru
(02.07.2006), para. 227.
60
.
Cf. ICHR, Judgments in the cases of Vargas Areco v. Paraguay (of 09.26.2006), paras. 95-96; of
Goiburú et al. v. Paraguay (of 07.22.2006), para. 96; and cf. Judgments in the cases of Ximenes Lopes v.
Brazil (of 07.04.2006), para. 156; of Montero Aranguren et al. v. Venezuela (Catia Detention Center, of
07.05.2006), para. 104; and of Baldeón García v. Peru (of 04.06.2006), para. 128.
61
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents