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the matter, b) the procedural activities carried out by the interested party, and c) the
conduct of judicial authorities.102
103. Taking into account these three elements, as well as the State’s confession, the
Court finds that the period of 19 years that has taken for the domestic justice to investigate
the instant case is totally unreasonable and constitutes a violation of the right enshrined in
Article 8(1) of the American Convention to the detriment of Mr. EScué Zapata and his
relatives.
b)
Military jurisdiction
104. The criminal investigation over the death of Mr. Escué Zapata was in charge of the
Court Nº 34 in Military Criminal Proceedings for more than ten years.103
105. The Tribunal has established that in a Democratic Rule of Law the military criminal
jurisdiction has a restrictive and exceptional scope: It can only be prosecuted military
personnel who have committed some crime or felony that affects the legal interests of the
military order. To such regard, the Court has stated that “When a military court takes
jurisdiction over a matter that regular courts should hear, the individual’s right to a hearing
by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal previously established by law and, a
fortiori, his right to due process are violated. That right to due process, in turn, is intimately
linked to the very right of access to justice.”104 Due to these reasons and to the nature of
the crime and the legal interest affected, the military criminal jurisdiction was not a
competent court to carry out an investigation and, in its case, to prosecute and punish the
perpetrators of the facts of this case.
106. In consideration of the foregoing, the Court considers that during the time that the
military criminal justice learned the facts of the instant case, the State violated the right to
a hearing before a competent, independent and impartial tribunal, enshrined in Article 8(1)
of the American Convention. However, the Court notes that the procedure for the death of
Mr. EScué Zapata is, at the moment, under the ordinary jurisdiction. That is, that the State
itself has remedied the initial violation of this right. Nevertheless, the transfer of the
proceedings to the ordinary jurisdiction and, in the case at hand, to the Nacional Unit of
Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law of the General Prosecutor’s Office of the
Nation (UNDH) is not enough for the State to comply with its international commitments
derived from the American Convention. In fact, the next investigation should be conducted
using all available legal means and directed at determining the truth and the pursuit,
capture, prosecution and punishment of all the masterminds and perpetrators of the facts,
whatever the nature of their involvement in the case.105 It is vital that the complexity of the
matter, the context and the circumstances in which it occurred and the patterns that explain
its commission must be taken into account when carrying out a due diligence in the
investigative procedures. The judicial authorities should try, at least, inter alia: a) to
102
Cf. Case of Suárez-Rosero v. Ecuador. Judgment of November 12, 1997. Series C No. 35, para. 72; Case
of La Cantuta v. Peru, supra note 8, para. 196 and Case of Vargas-Areco v. Paraguay, supra note 36, para. 102.
103
Cf. Ruling of the Court Nº 34 to remit the investigation to the ordinary jurisdiction, of July 7, 1998 (Record
of Appendixes to the answer of the complaint, Prosecutor's file, Folder 1, pages 1764 and 1765).
104
Cf. Case of Castillo-Petruzzi et al. v. Peru. Judgment of May 30, 1999. Series C No. 52, para. 128; Case of
La Cantuta v. Peru, supra note 8, para. 142; and Caso Almonacid-Arellano et al. v. Chile, supra note 17, para.
131.
105
Cf. Case of Miguel Castro-Castro Prison v. Peru, supra note 17, para. 256; Case of Goiburú et al. v.
Paraguay, Judgment on Merits, Reparations and Costs on September 22, 2006. Series C No. 153, supra note, para.
117; and Case of Servellón-García et al. v. Honduras. Judgment of September 21, 2006. Series C No. 152, para.
119.