an arbitrary criterion. The free assessment made by the jury does not differ substantially from the assessment that a technical judge can make; it merely does not articulate it. Ultimately, any court (whether technical or lay), must reconstruct a past event and, to this end, it must use methodological logic which anyone is capable of doing, because this does not depend on whether or not the individual has legal training or education. Everyone who has to reconstruct a past event, consciously or unconsciously, uses the historical method; that is, they first delimit the evidence they will take into account; then they assess whether that evidence is not substantively false; then they assess the plausibility of the content of the evidence and, finally, they reach a synthesis. Anyone assessing a jury’s verdict must necessarily follow this path, and it is not sufficient to reject any different opinion on the evaluations. To reject a jury’s verdict, it is necessary to verify that the synthesis completely diverged from this methodological logic referred to above.54 78. In the present case, the Commission and the representatives argued that the form of the reasoning affected the possibility of knowing with clarity and certainty the facts that the jury considered proved and the reasons why they fell within the disciplinary grounds that were established. 79. In this regard, the Court notes that: a) in accordance with Article 184 of the Constitution of the Province of Buenos Aires, the verdict of the Impeachment Jury is rendered "according to the law, declaring the accused judge guilty or not guilty of the fact or facts imputed to him"; b) each of the jurors had to render their verdict by answering 16 questions that were known to them prior to the trial (supra para. 31); c) in the instant case, the content of the decision of the Impeachment Jury contains the factual and legal arguments of each one of the jurors to each one of the questions,55 and d) in the Judgment of the Impeachment Jury of June 15, 2000,56 contrary to what was stated by the Commission, an exercise of substantial integration of the answers provided by each of its members was carried out, and it was indicated that the jury had concluded by "unanimity of the members present that the accused incurred in the grounds set forth in Article 21, paragraphs e), f) and k) of Law 8085 [...], with the reservations and partial dissents indicated in the votes that make up the verdict herein" (supra para. 32). 80. In accordance with the foregoing, the Court has no elements to conclude that the Judgment of the Impeachment Jury had been reached arbitrarily or lacked the necessary motivation inherent to the nature of this type of proceedings. Consequently, this Court concludes that the State did not violate the right to a reasoned decision contained in Article 8(1) of the Convention to the detriment of Mr. Rico. B.4. The alleged violation of the right of defense, other judicial guarantees and the right to appeal the judgment to a higher court 81. This Court recalls that on October 5, 1999, the Impeachment Jury in charge of trying Mr. Rico was formed and that it extended for 15 days the term of the proceeding provided for in Article 28 of the Impeachment Law. In addition, it admitted the totality of the testimonial and informative evidence offered by the plaintiff and partially admitted the evidence offered by the alleged victim. On May 18, 2000, Mr. Rico filed a motion for nullity against the decision that partially denied the evidence offered, arguing a series of due process violations. On June 1, 2000, the Impeachment Jury dismissed the nullities argued by the accused and decided to continue with the proceedings (supra para. 30). 54 55 56 Cf. Case of V.R.P., V.P.C. et al. v. Nicaragua, paras. 259 and 262. Cf. Votes of the Impeachment Jury of June 15, 2000 (evidence file, folios 8 to 173). Judgment of the Impeachment Jury of June 15, 2000 (evidence file, folios 175 and 176). -20-