10 and citizens. It is the “guarantor power” par excellence. This is the reason why those who exercise judicial functions are required to have so many qualities, and even virtues –above and beyond those usually required of those exercising other types of authority, including those who act as representatives-, and this is also why private individuals are promised access to justice by means of independent, impartial, and competent tribunals. Procedural immediacy is party to this promise. The examining judge, the guarantees judge, the judge who hears the case, have this substantive function. This is what the defendant expects, for the hands of the police or of the public prosecutor not to be the only ones guiding his fate from the moment when the criminal controversy arises. 44. However, many circumstances hinder fulfillment of this promise, inherent to the Rule of Law and to juridical certainty of citizens, who believe they are protected by it. We must note how carefully the constitutional and international texts stipulate that the detainee –whose capture must be based on a court order, unless there is flagrancy- must be brought as soon as possible before a judge, and not before any other agent of authority, for the judge, with all the juridical and ethical authority of his mastery of the law, to ascertain whether the conditions that make his detainment legitimate have been met, whether said detainment should continue, and whether it is appropriate to take the following steps along the harsh path of the proceeding. Any omission of this appearance before the judge impedes access to justice, renders the defendant helpless, alters the juridical project of the Rule of Law, transform lawfulness into arbitrariness. In many cases –and certainly in the one that gave rise to the judgment to which I attach my own Opinion- this has not been so: the accused does not meet his judge until the proceeding is well advanced; there is no immediacy; individualization becomes rarified; disclosure is lacking. Can we justify that the first judge a citizen meets is the justice of an international court, when it is not an international court but rather domestic justice that must be the front line –the indispensable, decisive, fundamental front: this we must underline- in the protection of subjective rights? XI. Amparo 45. Article 25 of the American Convention establishes a precious guarantee, which is exactly, the “guarantee of guarantees,” the “right that serves all rights.” This guarantee, this right, is the culmination of a protective system that ultimately places its expectations in a means of defense that all may resort to and that all may satisfy. This provision states that “(e)veryone has the right to simple and prompt recourse, or any other effective recourse, to a competent court or tribunal for protection against acts that violate his fundamental rights (...).” Likewise regarding this point and apropos of the judgment in the instant case, but also in a large number of cases – actually, all those heard by the Inter-American Court-, we must ask ourselves about the “effectiveness of effective recourse,” about the simplicity and promptness that define it in the strict and sufficient terms of the Convention, which does not go much farther than the point reached by many national constitutions. 46. Is the recourse foreseen truly “effective,” in the sense that it enables a real defense of fundamental rights, always and under all circumstances? Is it truly “simple”, in that it can be known, understood, used by any citizen –since it was established to protect any citizen- who needs that protection? Is it truly “prompt,” in the sense that it ensures very rapidly, not after months or years, protection of a right whose protection admits no delay without causing severe and irreparable damage to the person entitled to that right? Has an effective system of remedies been built, overcoming unnecessary complexities, useless technicalities, inadmissible obstacles? The panorama that the Court usually has before it does not attest to this, as shown by the frequency with which it finds violations of Article 25. Observance of the latter