provincial criminal procedural codes and the actions of their respective law enforcement
personnel.
120. The State asked the Court to “bear in mind that, in the opinion of the Argentine State,
it has already adapted the legislation regulating the authority to search people in public places
without a court order, based on objective reasons and the requirement to justify those reasons
in each case.” It also stated that the case law of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation
had made progress in limiting the authority of law enforcement personnel to carry out searches
without a court order, and this had “been crystallized with the enactment of the new Federal
Code of Criminal Procedure of the Nation adopted by Law No. 27,063 of December 9, 2014.”
The State indicated that the amendment of the law eliminated any possibility of expanding
the powers of the police and granted the courts ample scope to annul any procedure that
strayed from the initial requirements established therein. Thus, it indicated that the State had
complied with its obligation to ensure that the legislation regulating the authority to conduct
searches of people in public places was based on objective reasons. Consequently, it asked
that the measures of reparation established by the Court should be addressed at the process
of implementing the new Procedural Code.
121. In this judgment, the Court has determined that article 4 of the Criminal Procedural
Code in force at the time when Mr. Fernández Prieto was detained, articles 230 and 284 of the
National Criminal Procedural Code, in force at the time of the detention of Mr. Tumbeiro, and
article 1 of Law 23,950, constituted non-compliance with Article 2 of the American Convention
(supra paras. 62 to 110). The Court also notes that the criminal procedural regulations have
been amended by the adoption of a new Federal Code of Criminal Procedure of the Nation and
that article 138 of this Code regulates the situations enabling searches without a court order.
The Court notes that the information provided by the State reveals that these legislative
amendments constitute progress in compliance with the duty to adopt domestic legislative
measures, but do not cover all the violations declared in this judgment.
122. Therefore, the Court considers that, within a reasonable time, the State must adapt its
domestic legislation, which entails amending norms and implementing practices aimed at
achieving the full effectiveness of the rights recognized in the Convention in order to make it
compatible with the international parameters that should exist to avoid arbitrariness in the
situations of detentions, body searches or searches of a vehicle addressed in this case,
pursuant to the parameters established in this judgment. Consequently, when creating and
applying the regulations that authorize the police to carry out detentions without a court order,
the domestic authorities are obliged to carry out a control of conventionality taking into
account the interpretations of the American Convention made by the Inter-American Court in
relation to detentions without a court order, which have been reiterated in this case.
123. Regarding the representatives’ request concerning the amendment of provincial
criminal procedural codes and the issue of regulatory protocols for the actions of law
enforcement personnel, the Court notes that those norms or their absence were not applied
to the facts of this case so that it is not appropriate to examine them in abstract. Therefore,
the Court considers that it is not incumbent on it to issue a ruling on this request when ordering
the reparations in this case.146
B.2.2. Training for law enforcement personnel, and members of the Public
Prosecution Service and the Judiciary
Cf. Case of Genie Lacayo v. Nicaragua. Preliminary objections. Judgment of January 27, 1995. Series C No.
21, para. 50, and Case of López Lone et al. v. Honduras. Preliminary objection, merits, reparations and costs.
Judgment of October 5, 2015. Series C No. 302, para. 307.
146
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