Congress did have competence to conduct impeachment proceedings; in other words, the ICourtHR only considered the lack of competence with regard to the decision to terminate the judges on November 25, 2004, and not the competence of Congress with regard to the impeachment proceedings, regarding which specific violations were alleged of other judicial guarantees that were not examined in the Judgment. 99. In my opinion, the ICourtHR should have taken advantage of this opportunity to consolidate its case law concerning the due process of law applicable to the impeachment of judges. And this, because it has few opportunities to rule on the issue, and because of the institutional weakness in which the Judiciaries and constitutional courts of the region find themselves in the face of ambush by the political authorities, which, unfortunately, is not infrequent. As I have indicated previously (supra para. 67), nowadays, the Inter-American Court has an interpretive function erga omnes of the American Convention with exceeds the specific case, a situation of special importance bearing in mind the limited number of cases that it decides, owing to the design of the inter-American human rights system; a situation that differs greatly from that of the European system, especially following the entry into force of Protocol 11 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms under which the European Commission was eliminated and direct access was permitted to the European Court.128 Thus, the binding expansion of the “interpreted provision of the Convention”129 acquires particular relevance in inter-American justice, above and beyond the specific case (res interpretata), constituting one more element in the construction of a ius constitutionale commune americanum — or, at least and for the time being, latinoamericanum130 — which permits ensuring a minimum standard of regional applicability of the American Convention in favor of human rights and dignity. 100. In the same way that the Inter-American Court analyzed the violations to the right to a hearing and some components of the right of defense, the Court could also have made a specific examination of alleged violations to other rights established in Article 8(2) of the American Convention expressly mentioned by the Inter-American Commission and alleged by the representatives of the victims, rather than evading their examination by considering that, since the Congress was not competent to terminate the judges, it was not necessary to make this analysis because the decision was “totally unacceptable.”131 Precisely because it was a decision of the National Congress that was characterized as unacceptable, the ICourtHR should have ruled on the other arguments relating to the rights under Article 8(2) of the Pact of San José and, especially, when it had examined the right to a hearing and some components of the right of defense and declared that they had been violated. 101. Indeed, on the one hand, Congress was competent to conduct the impeachment proceedings; and, on the other, it should not be overlooked that, in other cases, even 128 According to its 2012 Annual Report, the European Court of Human Rights had 128,100 cases pending a decision. Cf. European Court of Human Rights. Annual Report 2012, Strasbourg, 2013, pp. 4, 6, 7 and 150. 129 Cf. Case of Gelman v. Uruguay. Monitoring compliance with judgment. Order of March 20, 2013, para. 67 and ff. The ICourtHR has established that the “interpreted provision of the Convention” is binding in both the specific case (res judicata) and with general effects for the other States Parties to the American Convention (res interpretata). This is of particular importance for the “control of conformity with the Convention” that must be carried out by all the national authorities in keeping with their respective competences, and the corresponding procedural regulations, and is also useful for compliance with the decisions of the Inter-American Court. 130 Cf. von Bogdandy, Armin, Morales Antoniazzi, Mariela, and Ferrer Mac-Gregor, Eduardo (coords.), Ius Constitutionale Commune en Derechos Humanos en América Latina, Mexico, Porrúa-IMDPC-Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, 2013. 131 Para. 223 of the Judgment. 27