76 of human rights violations attributed to members of the Mexican armed forces, whether or not they are on active service. Furthermore, they asked the Court to order the Mexican State to carry out legislative reforms in order to provide the victims of an offense or the aggrieved parties with access to an effective remedy for the protection of their rights, and specifically to contest the submission of their case to the military jurisdiction. 235. In the Court’s opinion, it is not only the enactment or the suppression of domestic legal provisions that guarantee the rights contained in the American Convention. Pursuant to the obligation established in its Article 2 of said instrument, the State must also develop practices leading to the effective observance of the rights and freedoms embodied in the Convention. The existence of a norm does not, in and of itself, guarantee that its application will be adequate. The application of the norms or their interpretation, as jurisdictional practices and expressions of the State’s public order, must be adapted to the objective sought by Article 2 of the Convention. In practical terms, as the Court has already established, the interpretation of Article 13 of the Mexican Constitution must be coherent with the constitutional and the treaty-based principles of due process and access to justice contained in Article 8(1) of the American Convention and the pertinent provisions of the Mexican Constitution.245 236. In its jurisprudence, the Court has established its awareness that domestic authorities are subject to the rule of law and, consequently, that they are obliged to apply the provisions of the laws that are in force in the legal code.246 Nevertheless, when a State is a party to an in international treaty such as the American Convention, its judges, as part of the State apparatus, are also subject to such a treaty, and this obliges them to ensure that the effects of the provisions of the Convention are not diminished by the application of norms contrary to its object and purpose. The Judicial branch must exercise control ex officio of the harmonization of the domestic norms with the American Convention, evidently within the framework of their respective competences and the corresponding procedural rules. In this task, the Judicial branch should bear in mind not only the treaty, but also the interpretation of it made by the Inter-American Court, definitive interpreter of the American Convention.247 237. Hence, the constitutional and legislative interpretations concerning the criteria for the personal and subject matter jurisdiction of the military jurisdiction in Mexico needs to be adapted to the principles established in the Court’s jurisprudence, which have been reiterated in the present case. This implies that, irrespective of the reforms to the law that the State may adopt (infra paras. 239 and 240), in this case, it is incumbent on the judicial authorities, based on the “control of the harmonization of domestic law with the Convention,” to order immediately and ex officio that the facts be heard by the ordinary criminal justice system. 238. On the other hand, the Court recalls that it has already found, in the case of Radilla Pacheco, that it is not necessary to order the amendment of the normative content that regulates Article 13 of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States. 245 Cf. Case of Radilla Pacheco, supra note 33, para. 338. 246 Cf. Case of Almonacid Arellano et al. v. Chile. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations, and Costs. Judgment of September 26, 2006. Series C No. 154, para. 124; Case of La Cantuta v. Perú. Merits, Reparations, and Costs. Judgment of November 29, 2006. Series C No. 162, para. 173, and Case of Radilla Pacheco, supra note 33, para. 339. 247 Cf. Case of Almonacid Arellano, supra note 246, para. 124; Case of Boyce et al. v. Barbados. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations, and Costs. Judgment of November 20, 2007, Series C No. 169, para. 78, and Case of Radilla Pacheco, supra note 33, para. 339.