5 this law which it deems inappropriate is the one which it ought to apply to the case subjudice, whether it likes it or not - however hard the law is, it still is the law (...). And it added that it should apply the legislation in force (principle of legality), but it suggested to the National Assembly to amend it, or to promulgate a "new and better" law. 16. The last Judgment (of 1997) of the Supreme Court of Justice is not an isolated fact: it constitutes, rather, a new fact which demonstrates the existence of a continuing situation, up to the present time, of impunity of those responsible for violations of the rights protected by the American Convention. Such continuing situation already existed well before the Inter-American Court delivered its Judgment on the merits in Genie Lacayo, it already came into being as from the moment in which the Supreme Court of Justice referred the case to the military courts, whose legislation determines that members of the military are to be tried in special military courts for ordinary crimes, even when there is a complaint of violation of the rights enshrined in the Convention. 17. The new fact, in the framework of such continuing situation, is, in my view, of decisive influence so as to lead the Inter-American Court to conclude that the present appeal of revision is well-founded and to proceed to rectify the verification of the facts on which it based itself in its Judgment on the merits in Genie Lacayo. The unsatisfactory picture, from the perspective of human rights, resulting from the two aforementioned judgments of the Supreme Court of Justice, derives from the applicability of the military legislation (the decrees ns. 591 and 600), as the fact that it remains in force amounts to a continuing situation affecting the human rights protected by the American Convention; this enables the Inter-American Court to revise the criteria of its Judgment on the merits in Genie Lacayo. 18. The right to a simple, prompt and effective remedy before the competent national judges or tribunals, enshrined in Article 25 of the Convention, is a fundamental judicial guarantee far more important than one may prima facie assume, xiii and which can never be minimized. It constitutes, ultimately, one of the basic pillars not only of the American Convention on Human Rights, but of the rule of law (État de Droit) itself in a democratic society (in the sense of the Convention). Its correct application has the sense of improving the administration of justice at national level, with the legislative changes necessary to the attainment of that purpose. 19. The origin - little-known - of that judicial guarantee is Latin American: from its insertion originally in the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man (of April 1948), xiv it was transplanted to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (of December 1948), and from there to the European and American Conventions on xiii. Its importance was pointed out, for example, in the Report of the Commission of Jurists of the OAS for Nicaragua, of 04 February 1994, pp. 100 and 106-107, paragraphs 143 and 160 (unpublished to date). xiv. At a moment when, in parallel, the Commission on Human Rights of the United Nations was still preparing the Draft Universal Declaration (from May 1947 until June 1948), as recalled, in a fragment of memory, by the rapporteur of the Commission (René Cassin); the insertion of the provision on the right to an effective remedy before national jurisdictions in the Universal Declaration (Article 8), inspired in the corresponding provision of the American Declaration (Article XVIII), took place in the subsequent debates (of 1948) of the III Committee of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Cf. R. Cassin, "Quelques souvenirs sur la Déclaration Universelle de 1948", 15 Revue de droit contemporain (1968) n. 1, p. 10.