31. Furthermore, the State dismisses the petitioners’ allegations as to the ineffectiveness and
unsuitability of the remedies of inapplicability and cassation, on procedural grounds and on the
merits. It argues in this regard that “legally, procedural efficacy is not measured by the
number of remedies pursued, denied, or accepted, but by how they have been conceived by
the law.”13 The State notes that the inapplicability remedy may be pursued at any time before
the Supreme Court and that it is a “special remedy of the utmost usefulness and procedural
and judicial efficacy.”
32. The Inter-American Commission notes that the requirement established in Article 46(1)(a)
of the American Convention refers to the exhaustion of available judicial remedies that are
adequate and effective for solving the alleged violation of human rights. As the Inter-American
Court has reiterated on several occasions, if in a specific case the remedy is not suitable for
restoring the legal interest infringed and capable of producing the result for which it was
designed, it is obvious that one need not exhaust it.14
33. In the matter submitted to the IACHR, even though he alleged the lack of impartiality of
the military courts, Mr. Palamara Iribarne’s representative recurred to the available fora and
pursued, to its conclusion, the desacato proceeding instituted by the naval authorities. The
complaint appeal with which that proceeding culminated, according to the information in the
record, considered the possibility of the Supreme Court of Chile overturning the guilty verdict
against Mr. Palamara Iribarne, and of a declaration sua sponteas to the inapplicability of the
criminal provision on desacato that the petitioners argue violates the alleged victim’s human
rights. The possibility that the highest judicial organ in Chile might take up the issue of
inapplicability sua sponte is mentioned expressly by the Chilean State when it describes that
remedy (supra 26). Furthermore, it has been seen above that the petitioners provided ample
statistical information to support their arguments.
34. The Inter-American Commission observes that the Chilean State did not dispute the official
documentation or the doctrine invoked by the petitioners, but that it repeated its position
regarding the suitability of the other remedies not pursued in Mr. Palamara Iribarne’s case,
based on its legal view.
35. The IACHR believes that the complaint appeal--in its legal conception and in its
interpretation and application by the Chilean courts--was suitable to solve the situation alleged
by the petitioners, who pursued it in the time and manner provided for in Chilean domestic
law. In addition, the petitioners allege that the Supreme Court had full and broad powers to
declare the inapplicability of the law questioned in the context of the complaint appeal. In
effect, Article 80 of the Chilean Constitution provides:
The Supreme Court, sua sponte or upon request by a party, in the matters that
come before it, or that are submitted to it in a motion filed in any proceeding
before any other court, may declare inapplicable for those particular cases any
law contrary to the Constitution. This remedy may be invoked at any stage of
the proceeding, and the Court may order the proceeding suspended.
36. The Chilean State had several opportunities to cure the alleged violation of the
fundamental rights of Mr. Palamara Iribarne in the procedure identified as case No. 471 on
desacato, in particular when the issue was raised before the highest court through the
complaint appeal. In view of the foregoing, it would not be reasonable to impose on the
petitioners in this matter the burden of exhausting the additional remedies that the Chilean
State identified. The IACHR concludes that the judgment handed down by the Supreme Court
13
Id., p. 3.
See, e.g., Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Exceptions to the Exhaustion of Domestic Remedies (Arts. 46(1),
46(2)(a), and 46(2)(b) of the American Convention on Human Rights), Advisory Opinion OC-11/90 of August 10,
1990, para. 36
14
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