43 this is exceptionally grave, as it puts at risk the most cherished possession, namely, human life, and is arbitrary according to the terms of Article 4(1) of the Convention. 110 104) The Court finds that the Offences Against the Person Act has two principal aspects: a) in the determination of criminal responsibility, it only authorizes the competent judicial authority to find a person guilty of murder solely based on the categorization of the crime, without taking into account the personal conditions of the defendant or the individual circumstances of the crime; and b) in the determination of punishment, it mechanically and generically imposes the death penalty for all persons found guilty of murder and prevents the modification of the punishment through a process of judicial review. 105) The Court concurs with the view that to consider all persons responsible for murder as deserving of the death penalty, "treats all persons convicted of a designated offense not as uniquely individual human beings, but as members of a faceless, undifferentiated mass to be subjected to the blind infliction of the death penalty." 111 106) In countries where the death penalty still exists, one of the ways in which the deprivation of life can be arbitrary under Article 4(1) of the Convention is when it is used, as is the case in Trinidad and Tobago due to the Offences Against the Person Act, to punish crimes that do not exhibit characteristics of utmost seriousness, in other words, when the application of this punishment is contrary to the provisions of Article 4(2) of the American Convention. 107) It is the view of this Court that although a violation of Article 4(2) of the Convention was not specifically alleged by the Commission in its Applications (supra para. 3), but rather only in its final arguments (supra para. 90), the Tribunal is not prevented from examining that issue, by virtue of the general principle of law iura novit curia, "on which international jurisprudence has repeatedly relied and under 110 Cf. Lubuto v. Zambia, United Nations Human Rights Committee (No. 390/1990) U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/55/D/390/1990/Rev. 1 (Oct. 1995), para. 7.2 (recognising the importance of enabling the competent sentencing authority to exercise discretion in the imposition of sentences and indicating that, according to Article 6(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the death penalty may only be applied for the "most serious crimes"); Ndiaye Report, 1994/82, para. 377, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/1995/61 (14 December 1994) (holding that due process requires the consideration of all mitigating factors in proceedings that result in the imposition of the death penalty); Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab (1980) 2 S.C.C. 475, 534 (the Supreme Court of India held that the "scope and concept of mitigating factors in the area of the death penalty must receive a liberal and expansive construction by the Courts in accord with the sentencing policy writ large... "); The State v. Makwanyane and McHunu. Judgment, Case No. CCT/3/94 (June 6, 1995) (the Constitutional Court of South Africa struck down the death penalty provision of the Criminal Procedure Act No. 51 as inconsistent with South Africa’s 1993 Constitution and declared in part that "[M]itigating and aggravating factors must be identified by the Court, bearing in mind that the onus is on the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of aggravating factors [...] Due regard must be paid to personal circumstances and subjective factors that might have influenced the accused person’s conduct, and these factors must then be weighed with the main objects of punishment [...]." 111 The Supreme Court of the United States of America held that the mandatory death penalty constituted a violation of the due process guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment and the right to not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment of the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. The Court also indicated that the imposition of the death penalty generally necessitates a consideration of the relevant facets of the character and record of the individual offender and the circumstances of the particular offence. Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 304 (1976).