of the State’s ius puniendi and seek to ensure that the accused or the defendant is not submitted to arbitrary decisions.201 188. The examination of the alleged violations of judicial guarantees will be divided into three parts: A) a) Right to equal protection and right to be tried by an impartial court, in relation to the alleged violations to the detriment of the eight presumed victims b) Right of the defense to examine witnesses, in relation to the alleged violations to the detriment of Messrs. Norín Catrimán, Pichún Paillalao and Ancalaf Llaupe; c) Right to appeal the judgment before a higher court, in relation to the alleged violations to the detriment of seven of the presumed victims. Right to equal protection (Article 24 of the Convention) and right to be tried by an impartial court (Article 8(1) of the Convention), in relation to Article 1(1) of the Convention 1. Arguments of the Commission and of the parties 189. The Commission affirmed that Chile had violated Articles 8(1) and 24 and of the Convention, in relation to Article 1(1) thereof, based on the following reasons: a) It considered that there had been a selective application of the criminal law against the members of the Mapuche indigenous people. In its Merits Report it stated that “a number of international human rights organizations ha[d] expressed concern over the existence of a pattern of selective enforcement of Chile’s anti-terrorism laws to members of the Mapuche indigenous people” and referred to those concerns. It affirmed that “this was the context at the time the [presumed] victims were prosecuted and convicted” and emphasized that “if a person’s race or ethnic origin is a factor taken into account to make what would ordinarily be a common crime a terrorist offense, then this would be a case of selective application of the criminal law.” It stated that “a difference in treatment based on their ethnic origin and/or link to the Mapuche people [had been proved], inasmuch as the consideration of these elements had the effect of influencing the decision,” without the State having justified this difference in treatment; b) In addition, in particular in its final written arguments (in which it indicated that, in this case, “the methodology used to determine whether or not discrimination existed should focus on the analysis of the reasoning of the judgment in question”), it affirmed that, in this case, the discrimination “occurred in the judgments” and asked the Court to analyze the reasoning given in them. It stated that there had been a violation of the right to an impartial court, protected in Article 8(1) of the Convention, because the courts “assessed and classified the acts based on pre-conceived ideas relating to the context in which they took place, and […] adopted their decision to convict the accused applying these prejudices.” It asserted that Chile had incurred in “direct […] discrimination because this was explicitly present in the judgments convicting the victims.” It indicated that, in itself, Law No. 18,314 was not discriminatory, and that there was no need to analyze “whether it had been applied to other persons who were not members of the Mapuche indigenous people.” When analyzing “whether the prosecution and conviction of the [presumed] victims under the Counter-terrorism Act was discriminatory,” the Commission affirmed that the three judgments convicting the 201 Cf. Exceptions to the Exhaustion of Domestic Remedies (Arts. 46.1, 46.2.a and 46.2.b, American Convention on Human Rights). Advisory Opinion OC-11/90 of August 10, 1990. Series A No. 11, para. 28, and Case of Mohamed v. Argentina, para. 80. 65