heard (Article 8(1) of the American Convention), and that mandatory pretrial detention also violated the right to equality and non-discrimination (Article 24 of the American Convention). All of these rights were violated in relation to the obligation to adopt provisions of domestic law established in Article 2 of the American Convention. 176. The foregoing is even more problematic due to the jurisprudence of the Mexican Supreme Court in the Contradicción de tesis 293/2011 208 (contradiction of thesis) whereby it accepted that the specific restrictions contained in the National Constitution displaced international standards, among them those of the American Convention and other constituent parts of the Inter-American Human Rights System. 209 In this regard, according to the expert witness José Ramón Cossío Díaz, “the judges and magistrates of the Federal Judicial Branch are obliged to abide by the decisions contained in the Contradicción de tesis 293/2011 and in various files 1396/2011, under penalty of being sanctioned, without being able to express their disagreement or question the criteria of the Plenary or the chambers of the Supreme Court itself.” Moreover, according to this expert witness, by accepting that constitutional restrictions prevail over conventional rights and the jurisprudence and rulings of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, “the possibility of advancing toward criteria that would strengthen the pro-persona principle is rendered null and void. […] This means that the scope of judicial protection in Mexico in terms of mechanisms for the control of detention, review by ordinary means and amparo proceedings regarding custodial measures imposed under the concepts of arraigo and mandatory pretrial detention, are ineffective because it is not possible to adequately apply the pro-persona principle.” 210 In this sense, and in accordance with this interpretation, 211 the Mexican State could be in breach of the international obligations that it undertook to comply with by signing and ratifying international instruments such as the American Convention and the decisions of the Inter-American Court, which are binding on the States Parties. 177. In this regard, the Court has reiterated that the different State authorities have an obligation to exercise ex officio control of conventionality between domestic norms and practices and the American Convention, within the framework of their respective jurisdictions and of the corresponding procedural regulations. To carry out this task, the domestic authorities must take 208 See the written version of the expert opinion of Rogelio Arturo Bárcena Zubieta during the public hearing in this case (merits file, folio 1238). The declarant recalled that the “constitutional reform in matters of human rights of June 10, 2011, required all judicial operators and specifically the SCJN to rethink the hierarchical position of human rights from international sources in Mexico. In that context, the Contradicción de tesis 293/2011 represents a landmark ruling and watershed in this matter, since it is the first judgment of the SCJN Plenary which, in a manner binding for all the country’s judges, established that (i) based on the aforementioned reform, human rights norms from international sources are part of the parameter of constitutional rules in Mexico, so they are no longer related to constitutional norms in hierarchical terms, but are based on the pro persona principle and (ii) the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court is binding for all the country’s judges, provided that it is more favorable to individuals.” 209 Written version of the expert opinion rendered by José Ramón Cossío Díaz during the public hearing in this case (merits file, folio 1268). 210 Written version of the expert statement of José Ramón Cossío Díaz during the public hearing of the instant case (merits file, folio 1269). Other interpretations of the Contradicción de tesis 293/2011, such as that of expert witness Bárcena, consider that although it is true that a majority of Justices decided to incorporate the “express constitutional restrictions” in the judgment, “it is questionable that this is a truly binding criterion or that constitutes ratio decidendi because, as shown, (i) this issue was not among the points of disagreement, since neither the contending courts, nor the SCJN when settling the litis, made any statement or even mentioned it, and (ii) the judgment did not give content to the phrase “express constitutional restrictions,” nor did it clarify its possible terms of application vis-à-vis human rights from a conventional source. For this reason, as was stated, such considerations could actually be understood as obiter dicta, that is to say, a non-binding or non-obligatory criterion for the country’s judicial operators.” The expert witness added that “since the resolution of this precedent, the SCJN has used the human rights standards contained in international treaties as a parameter for constitutional control, in spite of their possible tension or contradiction with the Constitution.” Written version of the expert opinion of Rogelio Arturo Bárcena Zubieta rendered during the public hearing of this case (merits file, folios 1239 and 1940). 211 -47-