148. This Court would also emphasize that the alleged victims in the instant case are all of an advanced age (supra para. 125), many of them especially vulnerable. As regards these people, the Inter-American Convention on Protection of the Human Rights of Older Persons, to which Chile is party,380 recognizes certain applicable general principles, including equality and nondiscrimination (Article 3(d)), proper treatment and preferential care (Article 3(k)) and effective judicial protection (Article 3(n)). 149. Article 31 of the same international instrument recognizes the right of access to justice,381 reading, “Every person has the right to a hearing, with due guarantees and within a reasonable time, by a competent, independent, and impartial tribunal, previously established by law, in the substantiation of any accusation of a criminal nature made against him or for the determination of his rights and obligations of a civil, labor, fiscal, or any other nature.” The third paragraph of the article says, “State Parties shall ensure due diligence and preferential treatment for older persons in processing, settlement of, and enforcement of decisions in administrative and legal proceedings.” The Court therefore finds that older persons acquire a right to preferential treatment in the enforcement of judgments favorable to them, and that the State has a corresponding obligation to guarantee that older persons enjoy diligent, speedy, effective access to justice in both administrative and judicial proceedings. 150. This need to guarantee effective judicial protection of older persons, and in particular, to promote expeditious processes, is further backed by other instruments of international law, including the Brasilia Regulations Regarding Access to Justice for Vulnerable People, approved by the Fourteenth Ibero-American Judicial Summit in 2008 and updated at the Nineteenth Summit in 2018. Section Two of these regulations defines vulnerable people: 1. Definition of vulnerable people (3) A person or group of people can be considered vulnerable if their capacity to prevent, resist or overcome an impact that places them at risk, is not developed or is limited by a variety of circumstances. In this context, vulnerable people are defined here as those who, due to reasons of age, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity, physical or mental state, or due to social, economic, ethnic and/or cultural circumstances, or factors associated with their beliefs and/or religious practices, or absence thereof, find it especially difficult to fully exercise their rights before the justice system as recognised to them by law. (4) The following may constitute causes of vulnerability: age, disability, belonging to indigenous communities or to other ethnic/cultural diversities, including afro-descendants, as well as victimization, migration, refugee and internal displacement status, poverty, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity, and deprivation of liberty. The specific definition of vulnerable people in each country will depend on their specific characteristics, and even on their level of social or economic development. 2. Age […] (6) Aging can also constitute a cause of vulnerability if an elderly adult person finds it especially difficult, given their functional abilities and/or barriers resulting from the economic and social environment, to exercise their rights before the justice system, with full respect for their dignity. 151. More specifically, regarding access to justice for vulnerable populations, regulation 38 asserts: 380 Chile ratified this Convention on June 11, 2017, and deposited its instrument of ratification on August 15 of the same year. 381 The San José charter on the rights of older persons in Latin America and the Caribbean, adopted in 2012 at the Third Regional Intergovernmental Conference on Ageing in Latin America and the Caribbean, had already recognized, in paragraph 5, that “access to justice is an essential human right and the fundamental instrument for guaranteeing that older persons are able to exercise and effectively defend their rights.” 52