José Carlos
Trujillo Oroza
TOTAL
AMOUNT
US$130,000
.00
US$3,000.00
US$20,000.00
US$153,000.00
76.
The total amount of compensation indicated in the above table will be
delivered to Gladys Oroza de Solón Romero, as the beneficiary of the reparation,
both in her capacity of José Carlos Trujillo Oroza’s successor (supra para. 56) and in
her own right.
B) NON-PECUNIARY DAMAGE
77.
The Court will now consider the harmful effects of the facts of the case that
are not of a financial or patrimonial nature. The non-pecuniary damage may include
both the sufferings and affliction caused to the direct victims and their next of kin –
the impairment of highly significant personal values – and also the changes of a nonpecuniary nature in the lives of the victim or his family.
As it is not possible to
assign a precise monetary equivalent to non-pecuniary damage, there are only two
ways in which it can be compensated, in order to make integral reparation to the
victims. First, by the payment of an amount of money or the delivery of goods or
services of a significant financial value, which the Court determines by the
reasonable application of legal discretion and fairness; and, second, by the execution
of acts or civil works of a public nature or with public impact that have effects such
as the recovery of the victims’ memory, acknowledgement of their dignity,
consolation of their next of kin, or dissemination of a message of official disapproval
of the respective human rights violations and of commitment to efforts to ensure
that they do not happen again44. The first aspect of the reparation of non-pecuniary
damage will be examined in this section and the second in the following one.
Arguments of the representatives of the victim and his next of kin
78.
The representatives of the victim and his next of kin indicated that:
a)
the non-pecuniary damage suffered by José Carlos Trujillo Oroza,
owing to the torture and ill treatment to which he was submitted, is
transmitted by succession to his heirs, and is distinct from the damage
caused directly to the victim’s next of kin. The victim’s mother, Gladys Oroza
de Solón Romero, is the heir and owner of the non-pecuniary damage that
José Carlos suffered up until his death. The representatives of the victim and
his next of kin did not quantify this damage;
b)
the victim’s mother, Gladys Oroza de Solón Romero, his adoptive
father, Walter Solón Romero, and his brothers, Pablo Erick Solón Romero
Oroza and Walter Solón Romero Oroza, have suffered directly and profoundly
owing to the detention, torture and forced disappearance of José Carlos
Trujillo Oroza. They requested that the Court should consider that the crime
of forced disappearance continues to be committed, and that the uncertainty
of the victim’s mother and brothers has not ceased, because they still do not
44
cf. Cantoral Benavides case. Reparations, supra note 3, para. 53; and The “Street Children” case
(Villagrán Morales et al.). Reparations, supra note 3, para. 84.