4
to investigate and charge, does not exclude the possibility that the “Public Attorneys
institution” adopt general standards to construe the statutory rules they must apply
(by means of agreements receiving different denominations; internal administrative
acts, which should be made public as a legal certainty imperative) so that they can
take action in the proceedings as one, in an institutional manner, avoiding
inconsistency and divergence. None of the foregoing implies that the authorities
empowered to establish such general construction standards secundum legem (which,
in the long run, are subject to assessment by the court, whose construction of statute
is final), may determine beforehand that the institution act, in the course of the
prosecution, contra legem.
19.
For the reasons hereinbefore stated, I fully subscribe the observation by the
Inter-American Court in el paragraph 165 of the judgment to which I append the
instant opinion, when it upholds that “prosecutors, [that is the Public Attorneys acting
in criminal proceedings] must watch for the law to be correctly applied and seek the
truth of the facts as they are, acting professionally, loyally and in good faith,
considering both the elements that prove the existence of the crime and the
participation of the person charged with such crime, as well as the elements that may
extinguish or extenuate the criminal responsibility of the accused”.
Sergio García Ramírez
Judge
Pablo Saavedra - Alessandri
Secretary