no need for evidence-based proof that family members have experienced serious violations of
their psychological and moral, as this collateral outcome can be presupposed.
435. The Commission emphasized actions taken by the State subsequent to the alleged
arbitrary and extrajudicial executions, which were additional violations of the dignity of the
alleged victims’ families, specifically: (i) burying the remains as unidentified persons which, as
explained by the Commission, visited additional suffering upon the families, denying them the
possibility of burying their dead in a place of their own choosing and according their own
beliefs, and (ii) not having conducted a serious investigation into the alleged arbitrary
extrajudicial executions of the alleged victims, so that even today the facts remain in impunity.
The Commission cited the Court’s case law holding that the lack of effective judicial remedies
is in itself a source of additional suffering and anguish for the family members of alleged
victims, stressing that justice had still not been delivered in the instant case. The Commission
said that the alleged denial of justice “was shown to have occurred: (i) from the first moment
[…] after the [alleged] executions took place, because of the irregularities in the investigation;
(ii) by the [many years’] failure to conduct an effective investigation, on the court’s own
motion; (iii) by granting jurisdiction to the military criminal justice system, and (iv) because
of the delays and limitations […] that occurred in prosecution by the ordinary courts of a very
small number of persons.” The Commission held that all the State’s actions, combined with
the alleged extrajudicial executions per se, embodied a violation of the personal integrity of
family members of the alleged victims.
436. The Commission concluded that the State should be declared responsible for violating
the right to humane treatment enshrined in Article 5(1) and 5(2) of the American Convention,
read in conjunction with Article 1(1) thereof, in injury of the following family members:
Florentín Peceros Farfán, Nemecia Pedraza de Peceros, Jhenifer Solanch Peceros Quispe,
Herma Luz Cueva Torres, Edgar Odón Cruz Acuña and Lucinda Rojas Landa.
437. The representatives said that, according to the Court’s case law, the family members
of alleged victims may themselves be considered victims of violation of their personal integrity,
and detailed the facts that pointed to this breach. They stressed that “Peru violated the right
to personal integrity in injury of the family members […] due to the suffering caused by the
[alleged] extrajudicial executions of the [alleged] victims, the failure of justice and the way
their loved ones’ remains were disposed of.” The representatives argued that in the instant
case, the “next of kin” of the alleged victims “were exposed to profound sorrow over the years,”
and that the relatives of Eduardo Nicolás Cruz Sánchez found out about his death when they
saw it in the news, while the families of Herma Luz Meléndez Cueva and Víctor Salomón Peceros
Pedraza did not learn of the deaths of their loved ones until the 2001 investigations. The
representatives noted that the fact that the bodies of the alleged victims had been transferred
to the Central Hospital of the National Police of Peru, and that the bodies had been disposed
of secretly without notifying the next of kin, combined with the lack of explanations by the
State “about the circumstances in which [the alleged victims] had died or the circumstances
of their deaths,” violated the personal integrity of the family members of the alleged victims.
The representatives went on to stress the violations committed against the personal integrity
of these alleged victims because of the way their loved ones’ remains were disposed of, and
due to the slowness and lack of diligence in both the ordinary courts and the military
jurisdiction in imparting justice for the reported extrajudicial executions. Finally, the
representatives argued that the Court had established the iuris tantum presumption of
violation of the rights to psychological and moral integrity in injury of the next of kin of the
victims of certain human rights violations, such as extrajudicial execution and forced
disappearance, and therefore it fell to the State to prove otherwise.
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