4 from reasons of public interest), favors the international judicial decision, both as regards the existence of a violation of individual rights and the need to amend the applicable domestic legislation, the deficiencies of which have been recognized by the State. 15. Again, with regard to the facts of the instant case and based on them, the issue of examining once more which is the legitimate means in conformity with the values and principles enshrined by the American Convention which allows reacting to wrongful conducts which are injurious to certain legally protected interests and to their holders’ rights. I have previously stated that it is not a matter of not reproving wrongful conducts and, therefore, failing to tackle them, but of producing said legal reaction with strict rationality in conformity with such values and principles. Public reaction to wrongful conducts does also have boundaries: those boundaries, which are a safeguard for all individuals, do not amount to indifference, abandonment or impunity, but to the legitimate and careful exercise of power. It is obvious that the purpose sought is not consenting to the infringement of rights on the grounds that the right to cause damage does exist. Freedom is neither a safe-conduct to defamation or injurious words or insults, nor the automatic acquittal of the individual who, through an illegal conduct, causes moral damage. 16. In view of the foregoing, it is necessary to settle on a rational mechanism to prevent and tackle the infringement of rights. Criminal proceedings are sometimes resorted to -with an increasing frequency that should be a cause for alarm and, which, on occasions, is a cause for complacency, which points to a deficient historical memory and a serious lack of precaution- to punish wrongful conducts. In such proceedings, the harshest possible measures, which might be immoderate or excessive in general and in particular, are adopted and often turn out to be inefficient and counterproductive. In sum: disproportionate measures are adopted, if it is accepted that there must be proportionality, which, in essence, amounts to rationality, between the accepted restriction and the measure adopted thereunder. Naturally, this information is available to society and the State in order to fight the most serious infringements of both public and private legally protected interests, which may not be protected with less stringent instruments and reactions. But access to such information of social control does not mean that criminal proceedings are the only possible mechanism, nor the most relevant or appropriate in all cases. 17. It is necessary to remember at all times and as often as temptation to formulate criminal definitions and criminalize a high number of conducts makes its way, that criminal proceedings must be resorted to carefully and restrictively. In its prior rulings and decisions, the Inter-American Court has emphasized the compatibility from the criminal perspective between the so-called principle of minimum penal law and the values and principles of democracy. The application of a system of offenses –through the criminalization of conducts- and penalties –through the punishment of offenders- contributes to establishing the distance between democracy and tyranny, which is always lurking. Lack of restraint in criminal law intervention breaches the legal code and the political support of democratic societies. Hence, our direct opposition to the maximum penal law. 18. The State has acknowledged that its domestic legislation lacks accuracy as to the criminal definitions which may be applicable to the matter under discussion: “the lack of sufficient accuracy in the criminal legislation punishing defamation and preventing the infringement of the right to freedom of thought and expression entails the State’s failure to comply with its duty to adopt domestic measures as provided