8
28.
Moreover, consequent with the foregoing criteria, the Court also verified that
the decision made during the administrative proceedings did not include another type
of damage that the Court has considered must be compensated; namely, indirect
damage. it therefore ordered compensatory damages to compensate that harm (para.
247), without limiting itself to what had been established in the domestic sphere.
IV.
Interaction between the Inter-American Court and the domestic courts:
seeking to improve the protection of rights in the domestic sphere
29.
The effective respect and guarantee of human rights depends, above all, on the
will and action of the States; consequently, it is an obligation of the States to be the
initial mechanism for the protection of human rights. As founders and actors of the
inter-American system for the protection of human rights, the States have the
obligation to ensure the implementation at the domestic level of the international
norms of protection. After all, the daily effectiveness of the rights established under
the system depends on this.
30.
In this context, the domestic courts are called on to play a crucial role, because
they are one of the principle vehicles for the State to be able to convert the obligations
contained in the international human rights treaties into domestic law, by applying
them in their jurisprudence and daily proceedings.24 Evidently, not only must they
guarantee rights by ensuring the effectiveness of domestic judicial remedies, but they
must also put in practice the binding decisions of the Inter-American Court that
interpret and define the international laws and standards for the protection of human
rights.25
31.
The active participation of the domestic courts in guaranteeing human rights
creates a favorable environment for reinforcing their capacity to use procedures and
criteria that are increasingly in conformity with international laws and standards for
human rights protection, and this ensures the enhanced implementation of those laws
and standards at the domestic level.
32.
Consequently, one of the main purposes of the interaction between the
international and national bodies of laws is to improve the national protection systems.
This encourages the national jurisdictional organs to deal with violations of rights and
to do whatever is possible to repair them, if they occur. “In the international guarantee
there is a general interest, in addition to a merely subjective one, to foster the
effectiveness of the State system. International protection should not act as a
substitute for domestic protection; its function is to complete and promote the latter’s
increased effectiveness.”26
33.
The highest courts of Latin America have been nourishing themselves from the
Court’s case law in a process that can be referred to as the “nationalization” of
24
GARCÍA-SAYÁN, Diego, “Una Viva Interacción: Corte Interamericana y Tribunales Internos”, in The InterAmerican Court de Derechos Humanos: Un Cuarto de Siglo: 1979-2004, Corte Interamericana of Human Rights, San
José, Costa Rica, 2005, p. 330.
25
GARCÍA-SAYÁN, Diego, “Una Viva Interacción: Corte Interamericana y Tribunales Internos”, op. cit., p. 330,
and Diego García-Sayán “Justicia interamericana and tribunales nacionales”, op. cit., p. 379.
26
PEREZ TREMPS, Pablo, “Las garantías constitucionales y la jurisdicción internacional en la protección de los
derechos fundamentales”, in Anuario de la Facultad de Derecho, Universidad de Extremadura, No. 10, 1992, p. 81.
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