4 performance, with the arms function, the military discipline. In some legislations where the restrictive tendency of the military jurisdiction has progressed much more, one requirement is added to the circumstances required for that jurisdiction to act: war time or situation. The fact that only under this circumstance is the military justice to operate, reinforces the functional character of the Military Law and the respective jurisdiction, and it evidently constitutes an eloquent fact regarding its essentially exceptional character. 13. As it can be observed, the first requirement leaves civilians –the nonmilitary, in the sense I have just described- out of the military jurisdiction, completely and without exceptions. The second requirement excludes any of the causes which have no direct and immediate relation, by their own nature, with the military function. That is why “function” crimes are mentioned in this case, which are not updated because of the fact that the “officer” is a military member, although, as I have already said, that condition is also required. Evidently, this reference to the “function” is related to the nature of the activities, duties, performance qualified as military, of which the legislation has to be informed, and not only with certain formal qualification in provisions or authorities decisions. In other words, it is necessary to bear in mind –in this aspect as in many others- the nature of the legal relations, materially considered. 14. As in this case we are before a special justice, subtracted to the ordinary jurisdiction which governs all people, and therefore, we are before an exception or suspension of the equality system, when it comes to determine who are justifiable and which is the subject matter of the military justice it is necessary to act with a restrictive criterion, as it is the case of every hypothesis of exception. This implies the prevalence and preference of the equality, and not of the exception. Such is the only possible interpretation rule from the human rights standpoint and, by the way, also the only one consistent with the historical development of the subject. 15. In the case sub judice, the accused in the internal criminal action and victim in the Inter-American proceeding was no longer a member of the armed forces: he had no military functions under his responsibility. He was a civilian to the service of the armed forces, bound by a private legal instrument, the contract, and responsible for tasks which had no relation whatsoever with the military function, although they had a certain connection to it in the broad sense, but that does not determine the application of the military criminal law and the intervention of the military justice. Should there be any doubts –which I do not have— as to the civil or military nature of the defendant, they should be clarified through the interpretation criterion I mentioned above: the most compatible with the complete application of the principle of equality between the parties and, therefore, the most favorable to the individual. 16. Thus, the Court has been able to bring its jurisprudence constante with regard to the military jurisdiction: only for military officers in active service and regarding issues strictly related to the military function, firm jurisprudence which constitutes a valuable contribution by the Inter-American Court to the solution of issues which have often appeared in our region. Should this be the case, the application of the military jurisdiction on a civilian and regarding issues which go beyond the military function turns out to be incompatible with the Convention, particularly with regard to Article 8: the judge or court is not naturally competent, without discussing here if he or it gathers the other characteristics required by the same provision, which has been a matter of discussion in the case of trials followed by other types of crimes which affect or are supposed to affect the public or national security, with regard to which the court and the defendant are –or seem to be-, each in a different trench, members of the fighting forces.