with international obligations that, by constitutional mandate, prevail in the domestic legal system, and
even with obligations established by domestic law and case law to ensure the fundamental rights of the
victims and their families that were violated.
As already indicated, constitutional case law has recognized and reiterated on numerous occasions that,
owing to the constitutional rights affected by displacement, and considering the special circumstances of
weakness, vulnerability and defenselessness in which those displaced find themselves, this population has
the right to receive, urgently, preferential treatment from the State in the attention to its crucial needs, in
order to render them less vulnerable and to permit the effective exercise of their rights.
Therefore, insofar as: (i) the judgment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights determined,
expressly, the persons who were victims of forced disappearance as a result of the so-called Ituango
Massacres, events that were investigated and verified by the international organ and regarding which the
Colombian State acknowledged its responsibility; (ii) the judicial decisions of this Court are binding for the
Colombian State, which cannot invoke provisions of domestic law to fail to comply with them; (iii) the
population displaced by the violence has been recognized as subject to special protection owing to the
extreme vulnerability of their situation, and (iv) the authorities in charge of guaranteeing the rights of the
displaced population and ensuring prompt redress and reparation of the violated rights have not acted
with the diligence warranted by the circumstances; the Chamber finds that, in this case, the Unified
Registry of Population Displaced by Violence, has constituted an insurmountable obstacle that has
perpetuated the violation of the fundamental rights of the victims. […]
Requiring the petitioners who were victims of the so-called Ituango Massacres to register in the Displaced
Population Information System, as a requirement for access to some of the measures of reparation
(mainly housing, safety, and medical services) ordered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in its
judgment of July 1, 2006, violates their fundamental rights to a decent life and justice, ignoring with this
procedure, not only the international commitments of the Colombian State, but also the constitutional
mandate and the reiterated case law of this Chamber, in the sense of providing prompt and opportune
attention to groups of individuals who, owing to their situation of defenselessness and vulnerability,
require special protection from the State.
Regarding the persons who have been individualized by the non-governmental organization, Grupo
Interdisciplinario de Derechos Humanos following the delivery of the Judgment of the Inter-American
Court, this Chamber finds that they are legitimated to require compliance with the State’s obligations
concerning forced displacement, insofar as the State has not been able to disprove their status and they
will be beneficiaries of the measures of reparation contained in the Judgment of July 1, 2006, of the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights, established, in general, for all the members of the populations affected
by the violent events that took place in 1996 and 1997 in the villages of La Granja and El Aro of the
municipality of Ituango (Antioquia), known as the Ituango Massacres.
29.
In its recent case law, the Inter-American Court has stipulated, with regard to the
obligation of the State to exercise “control of conformity with the Convention,” that two
distinct manifestations of this can be observed, depending on whether or not the Judgment
has been handed down in a case in which the State is a party. Thus, when an international
judgment has been delivered that constitutes res judicata with regard to a State that has
been a party to the case submitted to the Court’s jurisdiction, all its bodies, including its
judges and the organs concerned with the administration of justice, are also subject to the
treaty and to this Court’s judgment, which obliges them to ensure that the effects of the
provisions of the Convention and, consequently, the decisions of the Inter-American Court
are not adversely affected by the application of norms contrary to their object and purpose
or by judicial or administrative decisions that make total or partial compliance with the
Judgment illusory. In other words, in this case, an international res judicata exists based on
which the State is obliged to comply with and execute the Judgment.23
30.
As a result of the legal force of the American Convention in all the States Parties to
it, a dynamic and complementary control of conformity with the Convention also plays an
important role in compliance with or execution of specific judgments of the Inter-American
23
Cf. Case of Gelman v. Uruguay. Monitoring compliance with judgment. Order of the Inter-American Court
of March 20, 2013, sixty-seventh and sixty-eighth considering paragraphs.
13