3
10.
In effect, we do not have to disregard, in this case of Palamara-Iribarne, that
Chile, due to the existence itself – at the time the facts took place- of Law No. 12,297
on the “State Security” of the Code of Military Justice, of the provisions regarding the
crime of contempt of the Criminal Code and the Code of Military Justice- was already
infringing the general duty of alignment of its domestic legal system with the
American Convention (Article 2), taking into account that these rules were patently
incompatible with said treaty, and it did not take positive protection measures (Article
1).
11.
As I expressed in my Dissenting Opinion in the case of El Amparo (Judgment
4
Interpretation, 1997) , with regard to Venezuela,
"A State may (...) have its international responsibility
compromised, in my opinion, by the mere approval and enactment of a
law not in agreement with its international conventional obligations of
protection, or for the lack of alignment of the necessary legislation to
allow the fulfillment of said obligations. The time to give precision to
the scope of legislative obligations of the States Parties in human rights
treaties has come. The tempus commisi delicti is, in my opinion, that of
the approval and enactment of a law which, per se, by its mere
existence and applicability, affects the protected human rights (...),
without it being necessary to wait for the subsequent application of this
law, generating additional damage.
The State under issue must immediately remedy such a
situation; failure to do so may configure a “continued situation” of
human rights violation (...). It is perfectly possible to conceive a
“legislative situation” contrary to the international obligations of a
certain State (for instance, keeping a legislation contrary to the
conventional obligations of protection of human rights, or not adopting
the required legislation to give effect to such obligations within the
domestic legal system). In this case, the tempus commisi delicti would
be extended so as to cover the whole period during which the national
laws remained in conflict with the conventional obligations of
protection, thus entailing the additional obligation to repair the
subsequent damage caused by that “continued situation” during the
whole period under analysis” (paras. 22-23).
12.
Also, in my Dissenting Opinion (para. 21) in the case of Caballero Delgado and
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Santana v. Colombia (Reparations, 1997), in which I stressed the impossible
dissociation between the two general obligations consecrated in the American
Convention, to wit, the obligation to respect and guarantee the protected rights
(Article 1(1)) and the obligation to align the domestic legal system with international
protection rules and regulations (Article 2) (paras. 6 and 9). Then, in Case of “The
Last Temptation of Christ” (Olmedo-Bustos et al. v. Chile, Judgment of February 5,
6
2001), following the same line of reasoning, I stated that
"the international responsibility of a State Party in a human
rights treaty arises the moment an illegal international fact –act or
omission- attributable to that State and in violation of the treaty under
issue takes place (tempus commisi delicti); (...) the effectiveness of a
domestic law provision, which per se entails a legal situation which
affects the rights protected by a human rights treaty, constitutes,
4
IACHR, Decision of April 16, 1997, C Series, No. 46.
5
IACHR, Judgment of January 29, 1997, C Series, No. 31.
6
IACHR, Judgment of February 05, 2001, C Series, No. 73.