SEPARATE OPINION OF JUDGE SERGIO GARCÍA RAMÍREZ CONCERNING THE JUDGMENT OF THE INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS OF JUNE 29, 2006, IN THE CASE OF THE ITUANGO MASSACRES 1. ACCEPTANCE OF FACTS AND CLAIMS, AND THE JUDGMENT OF THE COURT 1. On different occasions, I have referred to certain acts that take place during the international proceedings – specifically, during the judicial proceedings before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights – that have substantive and procedural relevance and, consequently, a direct impact on the progress of the proceedings, the decision on the facts (initially) in dispute, and the determination of the consequences. I am alluding to the confession, acquiescence, acknowledgement of responsibility or acceptance of the charges, each with its own juridical nature (not always delimited when such acts occur), even though they are frequently used as synonymous concepts. Essentially, they reveal the State’s willingness to acknowledge its international responsibility for the facts attributed to it and, in a more limited sense, the juridical consequences. 2. In other types of proceedings, the confession of the facts and the acceptance of the claims would end the dispute; accordingly, it would exclude the arguments of the counterpart, the burden of proving what has been accepted – which therefore goes unquestioned – the description of the criminal facts, and the reassertion of the offenses committed. Thus, if a debtor acknowledges that he owes a debt in terms that are agreeable to the creditor, there is no point receiving evidence on the debt that has been recognized and describing how it was acquired and the failure to pay it. 3. This rule, which evidently simplifies and abbreviates the proceedings, cannot be used just as it is in proceedings on the violation of human rights. The latter deal with matters that are subject to the willingness of the parties – particularly the parties as possessors of substantive rights and obligations; but also entail issues external to this, which must be considered and resolved by the judicial authority responsible for the interpretation and application of the American Convention and the final decision concerning the State’s observance of its international obligations, in light of the rights and freedoms established therein. 4. In its decisions on this matter, the Inter-American Court has paid attention to the logic of the human rights proceedings, which can have different purposes (reestablishment of the legal order, restoration of the peace on which social relations are based, preservation and recovery of the rights and interests of the individual), and to the frequent request of the Inter-American Commission and the representatives of the victims (which the State itself, in the act to which I have been referring, has implicitly transformed from the “alleged” victims of the violations that it has acknowledged into the injured parties). Thus, the Court admits the presentation of the evidence on the facts, during the public hearing; refers, in a special chapter of the judgment to the proven facts, and announces in different declarations, the existence of violations of specific human rights and freedoms. This

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