54 addition,] I have been unable to open a bank account since then […], and this has really limited the possibility of carrying out any commercial activities; I have not even been able to open a savings account. [I have had] very few employment openings; I have had to subsist doing other things that are outside my sphere of experience in industry; I have been able to survive with great difficulty owing to my wife’s help […] and the aid of my children who nowadays help pay my expenses. […] It is very painful to have been arrested and tried for something as horrible […] as drug-trafficking and to be innocent; no one can imagine how powerless one feels.169 249. Meanwhile, Mr. Lapo stated, inter alia, that: When I was arrested, I had been married one year. I had a two-month old baby, who I could not help teach to walk. I had projects with my wife […]. I was paying for a house that I had bought on credit, and which I lost because I had no income. I maintained two of my sisters; I paid for their university studies; they lived with me. […] My siblings had to look for work to help me. My family suffered; my wife suffered; she left my son abandoned with my mother-in-law so that she could take steps to seek my release. My wife cried; she said to me ‘what can I do, what can I do to get you released. What can I do because I haven’t any money now – she said to me – how can I get money?’ When I was released, life was very hard. I was shut up in my mother-in-law’s house for two months without going out. When I finally went out, I walked the streets, but I looked behind me all the time, because I thought I was being followed. I despaired because I wanted to work; I had no income; I had to pay debts; I didn’t know what to do; doors shut in my face everywhere. It was about two years before a company where I had worked previously […] had a vacancy, and the person who had been my boss […] called me. He said to me, ‘I trust you; I know that you are innocent, that you had nothing to do with it’ and he offered me the job again and, since then, I am working in that company. My eldest son’s schoolmates told him that their parents told them they should have nothing to do with him because he was the son of a criminal. […] I lost my home and now, when I want to take out a loan to purchase another one, [I am registered as] a person who is not suitable for obtaining credit, because of what appears in the CONSEP. I took certain measures to clear my record with CONSEP and, supposedly, they sent a communication saying that it had been erased from their files. This same communication was sent to the banks, but the banks refuse to erase my name from their list.170 250. The Court’s case law has established repeatedly that a judgment constitutes per se a form of reparation.171 However, considering the circumstance of the case sub judice, the suffering that the violations committed caused to the victims, the change in their living conditions, and the other consequences of a non-pecuniary nature that they suffered, the Court deems it pertinent to decide that compensation, established on the basis of the equity principle, should be paid for non-pecuniary damage.172 251. The Court takes into consideration that, as a result of the facts, the victims lost their employment and, hence, the financial support for themselves and their families; that they faced difficulty in finding new employment after they had been declared innocent; that they suffered the effects that the stigma of these facts gave rise to in society in general and in their social circle in particular, and that their family life was altered. 252. Based on all the above, the Court establishes a sum of US$50,000.00 (fifty thousand United States dollars) for each of the victims as compensation for nonpecuniary damage. 169 Cf. testimony of Mr. Chaparro at the public hearing, supra note 95. 170 Cf. testimony of Mr. Lapo at the public hearing, supra note 103. 171 Cf. Case of Suárez Rosero v. Ecuador. Reparations and Costs. Judgment of January 20, 1999. Series C No. 44, para. 72; Case of Cantoral Huamaní and García Santa Cruz, supra note 20, para. 180 and Case of Zambrano Vélez et al., supra note 13, para. 142. 172 Cf. Case of the “Street Children” (Villagrán Morales et al.) v. Guatemala. Reparations and costs. Judgment of May 26, 2001. Series C No. 77, para. 84; Case of Escué Zapata, supra note 22, para. 149, and Case of La Cantuta, supra note 16, para. 219.