SEPARATE OPINION OF JUDGE SERGIO GARCÍA RAMÍREZ IN THE ORDER OF THE INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS MARCH 30, 2006, ON PROVISIONAL MEASURES IN THE MATTER OF MENDOZA PRISONS 1. Once again the Inter-American Court is called upon to decide a case, brought to it by way of a petition —a repeated and maybe a still expectant petition—, over the extremely serious issues affecting prisons in many countries. Once again, the case under review involves the Mendoza confinement centers, but in the past (what will the future hold?) identical questions have been raised in connection with many Latinamerican confinement centers and their unfortunate population. The Court will soon address this issue again at a public hearing —during the XXVIII Extraordinary Session to be held in Buenos Aires— in the Case of Montero Aranguren et al. (Retén de Catia) v. Venezuela, as part of a contentious case. 2. The profile of the topics brought to the jurisdiction of the Court, either as contentious cases or petitions for provisional measure, reveals the presence and the spread of the dilemma of confinement, which often translates in unbearable, uncontrolled violations to the human rights of those who are held in custody, and even of other persons who live and suffer for those in the neighborhood of the “houses of the dead.” It is not possible to set aside, minimize or disregard this ambit of current or potential violations. It is true that they all call for urgent attention but in this hypothetical the urgency seems to have a special, characteristic component that grows and exceeds the projects designed to cope with and provide a solution to such urgent issue. It affects hundreds or thousands of human beings, whose rights are in permanent risk or sustain continuous impairment. 3. Based on the foregoing, the Report I submitted on March 10 this year on behalf of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to the Commission of Juridical and Political Affairs of the Organization of American States includes a specific and exceptional paragraph meant to call the attention of the distinguished delegates — i.e. the delegates of the States represented thereat— on the issue under review. In that Report, I stated that “several cases have shown there is a true crisis in the system of incarceration of adults and juveniles. This crisis translates in extreme violence and creates the referenced continuous risks. The Court has passed a number of orders on provisional measures containing several remarks in this respect, and urged the authorities to revise their confinement systems in depth. It seems crucial that the Organization and the States devote special attention to the examination of this issue and provide either immediate or progressive solutions to it, as the circumstances may require.” When dealing with this topic, I pointed out the issues that supported my concern —in 2005, the Court granted provisional measures in several cases concerning confinement centers: Mendoza Prisons (Argentina) and Complexo do Tatuapé de FEBEM (Brazil). In 2006, the Court ordered provisional measures in the Matter of La Pica (Venezuela). 4. A few days after the submission of said Report, new incidents took place in the Mendoza confinement centers —or else, these were a repetition of old incidents of extreme gravity and urgency or risk of irreparable dame to persons— that served