21
46. For all these reasons, the Court views positively the efforts made by the State and
the active participation of the representatives of the beneficiaries and finds that the factual
situation that led to the adoption and maintenance of these measures to the benefit of
individuals deprived of liberty in the Mendoza Provincial Penitentiary and the Gustavo
André unit, in Lavalle, does not persist. The situation of risk facing these individuals has
evidently not been eliminated, but the situation of vulnerability faced by individuals
deprived of liberty is a characteristic of any detention center. The information presented by
the State, the Commission, and the representatives does not allow for the conclusion that
the situation currently facing the inmates in the Mendoza Provincial Penitentiaries or the
specific factors of risk that they could be facing meet the standard of gravity verified
previously. In any case, the urgency and imminence of the situation no longer coincide.
47. This Tribunal is aware that the alleviation and correction of the situation present in
the Mendoza penitentiaries is a short, medium, and long term process requiring a collection
of actions directed toward rectifying prison and detention conditions on the part of federal
and provincial authorities in the administrative, judicial, and legislative areas. Many of
these issues do not fall under the supervision of the implementation of provisional
measures. Because of this and for the aforementioned reasons, the Court finds it
appropriate to lift the provisional measures.
48. Finally, the Court has been informed that in the petition submitted to the InterAmerican Commission known as "Case of the Inmates of the Mendoza Penitentiary," the
State and the representatives reached a friendly settlement agreement on August 28,
2007.25 According to information provided by the State, that agreement was approved
domestically through “Decree No. 2740 ratified through [L]aw [No.] 7.930 of September
16, 2008." The State reported on the measures taken toward complying with that
agreement, in particular measures of pecuniary and legal reparations and measures of
satisfaction;26 it expressed that the Commission has not issued the corresponding report
25
Cf. The referenced "friendly settlement agreement" in the proceeding before the Commission contains the
following sections: I) recognition of the Argentine State’s responsibility for the facts; II) pecuniary measures of
redress; III) nonpecuniary measures of reparation, including legal measures and other measures of satisfaction;
IV) action plan and budget; and V) ratification and circulation. Friendly settlement agreement (case file
provisional measures, Volume XIV, pages 4172 to 4176)
26
With regard to the pecuniary measures, the State reported that in Article 2 of Decree 2.740/07, ratified by
Provincial Law No. 7.930, it recognized the responsibility of the Government of the Province of Mendoza in "the
cases of violent deaths and serious attacks on personal integrity for having failed to guarantee the minimal
conditions of security, protection, and physical integrity for the inmates," submitting the case to an ad hoc
arbitration tribunal to determine the corresponding indemnities. This arbitration tribunal was to meet and rule in
June of 2010 in Mendoza. The State also indicated that the friendly settlement included several nonpecuniary
reparatory measures, among them legal measures in which the Province of Mendoza committed to submitting four
bills to the legislature, namely: i) a bill that would create an ombudsman’s office for individuals deprived of
liberty, while another would create a local mechanism for prevention in the framework of the Optional Protocol to
the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; these were
combined into a single bill creating "an external body to oversee the detention conditions of those deprived of
liberty,” ii) a bill creating the Ombudsman's Office of the People of Mendoza, and iii) a bill creating an official
provincial public defenders office for proceedings on sentence execution. All these projects were to be submitted
before the provincial legislature. However, the State indicated that they have not been addressed yet by the
plenary of that body. With regard to other measures of satisfaction, the State indicated that there is a
commemorative plaque in Penitentiary Complex 1, Boulogne Sur Mer, making reference to the precautionary and
provisional measures before the Inter-American System. Likewise, there is a measure to guarantee participation
of the petitioners in the preparation of an "action plan on penitentiary policy to allow for the establishment of
short, medium, and long term public policies." Toward doing so, the State had scheduled a meeting for this past