SEPARATE OPINION OF JUDGE SERGIO GARCÍA RAMÍREZ REGARDING THE JUDGMENT OF THE INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS CASE OF CHAPARRO ALVAREZ AND LAPO ÍÑIGUEZ v. ECUADOR OF NOVEMBER 21, 2007 A) Issues relating to criminal prosecution in the case law of the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights 1. In the Judgment delivered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on November 21, 2007, in the Case of Chaparro Álvarez and Lapo Iñiguez (Ecuador), the Court examines, among other matters, different issues relating to prosecution – a term that I employ in the broadest sense – or due process of law, judicial guarantees, effective judicial protection, comprehensive and satisfactory defense; concepts that, at times, are used as synonyms although, in truth, they are not, and that, in any event, encompass some of the issues that the Inter-American jurisdiction and its European counterpart deal with most often. The extraordinary relevance and the frequent examination of these issues stems from their crucial role for the preservation of all fundamental rights, and the prevalence of the problems, of greater or lesser significance in this regard, that the InterAmerican jurisdiction must consider. 2. Hence, the importance of due process and the need to insist on the definition and analysis of its different components. Due process is the touchstone of access to justice – formal, material and preventive; a factor of profound relevance to the preservation of the democratic system, above all when it extends its influence to the relationship between public authorities and the citizen in that critical sphere for the exercise of rights, the criminal proceedings, where the most relevant rights (life, integrity, liberty) are at risk, and the most serious allegations are made of authoritarianism designed to reduce, relativize or eliminate rights and freedoms. B) Preventive measures in criminal proceedings. Characteristic tensions 3. In the Judgment that this opinion accompanies, among other procedural issues, the Court examines some of the preventive measures regularly used in criminal prosecution, of both a personal (arrest, remand in custody) and material (embargo of property) nature. The former are usually characteristic of criminal proceedings (although, evidently, not exclusive to such proceedings), while the latter are associated, above all, with civil proceedings – but can increasingly be observed in criminal proceedings as an indirect means of combating crime, and a direct means of preserving the subject of the proceedings and the possibility of executing a guilty verdict. 4. In the context of criminal proceedings the preventive system has become particularly prevalent, alongside the stages of the hearing of the case (which it assists) and the execution of Judgment. It runs parallel to the investigation into the facts and the authors of these facts. It uses increasingly incisive and complex methods. Evidently, it always affects the rights of the accused, to a greater or lesser degree and, by definition, this takes place before there are juridical grounds – the Judgment – that decides on the existence of a crime, its characteristics, and the responsibility of a specific person, towards whom the preventive measures adopted by different authorities have been directed – occasionally for a significant length of time. At times these authorities are jurisdictional, and this should be the rule, owing to the need to guarantee the legality and lawfulness of