23 88. Article 5(2) of the American Convention provides that [n]o one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment. All persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person. 89. As the Court has stated (supra, para. 51), incommunicado detention is an exceptional measure the purpose of which is to ensure the results of an investigation; it may not be applied except in the conditions previously established by law, in the sense attributed to it by Article 30 of the American Convention (The Word "Laws" in Article 30 of the American Convention on Human Rights, Advisory Opinion OC-6/86 of May 9, 1986. Series A No. 6, para. 38). In the instant Case, those conditions are established in Article 22(19)(h) of the Political Constitution of Ecuador, which states that "[i]n any case [the detained person] may not be held incommunicado for more than 24 hours". This precept is applicable by virtue of the reference to domestic law in Article 7(2) of the American Convention (supra, para. 42). 90. One of the reasons that incommunicado detention is considered to be an exceptional instrument is the grave effects it has on the detained person. Indeed, isolation from the outside world produces moral and psychological suffering in any person, places him in a particularly vulnerable position, and increases the risk of aggression and arbitrary acts in prisons. 91. The mere fact that the victim was for 36 days deprived of any communication with the outside world, in particular with his family, allows the Court to conclude that Mr. Suárez-Rosero was subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, all the more so since it has been proven that his incommunicado detention was arbitrary and carried out in violation of Ecuador's domestic laws. The victim told the Court of his suffering at being unable to seek legal counsel or communicate with his family. He also testified that during his isolation he was held in a damp underground cell measuring approximately 15 square meters with 16 other prisoners, without the necessary hygiene facilities, and that he was obliged to sleep on newspaper; he also described the beatings and threats he received during his detention. For all those reasons, the treatment to which Mr. Suárez-Rosero was subjected may be described as cruel, inhuman and degrading. 92. For the above reasons, the Court rules that the State violated Article 5(2) of the American Convention. XIV Violation of Article 2 93. The Commission requested the Court to find that the unnumbered Article which follows Article 114 of the Ecuadorian Criminal Code (hereinafter "Article 114 bis") violates "the right to judicial protection" enshrined in Article 2 of the Convention. According to the Commission, it is an obligation of a State to organize its judicial apparatus in such a way as to ensure "to every person subject to its jurisdiction the free and full exercise of the rights established therein." 94. In the brief containing its final arguments, Ecuador stated that it had initiated the pertinent procedures for making that law conform to its Political Constitution, which

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