5
US$125,000.00 for each of the three families, to be distributed equitably according to the
number of family members.
17.
The Commission states that these indemnities must be paid directly to the
beneficiary relatives.
For the indemnities to the minor children, it proposes the
establishment of a trust fund, “the basic value of which would consist of a sum proportional
to the estimated projected income of the victim, after deducting what would have been the
victim's own living expenses. The foregoing would be determined by applying the current or
present value method.” The minor children would receive the remainder of the indemnity to
which they are entitled when they come of age or marry. The Commission requests that the
adult beneficiaries “be paid the total amount, adjusted to the date on which the judgment is
delivered.”
18.
The Government submitted its comments on the Commission's brief on reparations
on December 7, 1995, with assurances of its readiness to abide by the Court's ruling. It
proposed that the indemnity should be determined on the basis of the correlation between
the acts and the proven damages inflicted. Accordingly, for purposes of determining Costs
and Expenses [daño emergente], they would have to be duly substantiated by documentary
proof of actual expenditures. Such proof does not exist in the instant case, since the
Commission has produced none.
19.
Regarding the persons entitled to compensation, the Government maintains that, in
matters of succession, Peruvian law establishes that a person's heirs are his or her
descendants and spouse in that order and, in their default, the parents and other
ascendants; consequently, there is no reason in the instant case to compensate the sister of
the late Víctor Neira Alegría, it being only his spouse and children who are entitled to such
compensation.
20.
On the subject of “loss of earnings”, the Government states that the criteria laid
down by the Commission are not acceptable, based as they are on inaccurate data, such as
the average life-span of Peruvians, the assumption that time would have been devoted to
work, and the minimum living wage, none of which has been substantiated.
The
Government further adduces “the probability that if the victims had lived, they would have
been sentenced to years of imprisonment for the crime of terrorism and would therefore not
have been in a position to work during that time.”
21.
As far as moral damages are concerned, the Government claims that this is not a
case of forced disappearance; it is a case of persons who were charged with a crime and
unfortunately lost their lives when an organized revolt was being crushed. The decision
could not, therefore, be defended on the basis of the cases cited as precedents. It could be
maintained in the instant case that “the next of kin had already suffered moral damages,
but that the damages had been inflicted on them by the victims themselves when they
unlawfully took part in acts connected with terrorism, which was the reason for their arrest
and untimely deaths.” The Government deems the amount of US$125,000.00 assessed for
the moral damages caused to the next of kin of each of the victims to be exorbitant. It
considers that this amount, like the others sought by the Commission, “does not accord with
[their] actual economic situation.”
22.
On March 25, 1996, the Inter-American Commission presented a brief containing a
calculation of the possible age of Víctor Neira-Alegría in order to determine the amount
under the “loss of earnings” heading, and those for the “loss of earnings” of Mr. William
Zenteno-Escobar and Mr. Edgar Zenteno-Escobar, both of which were different to those