18
the Inter-American Commission has never, up to this date, sought the
hermeneutics of this Court on said Convention, as permitted expressly by the latter
(Articles 11-12). In the present case of the Castro Castro Prison, acts of extreme
violence and cruelty have been committed against the inmates – men and women,
- constant in the case file, which, however, require an analysis of gender in reason
of the nature of certain breaches of rights suffered especially by the women.
Remember, v.g., that stated, in this sense, in the aforementioned Brief of
Pleadings, Motions, and Evidence (of 12.10.2005) of the victims’ legal
representation in the sense that several female prisoners, who were already
“seriously injured” but made it to the hospital, “transported in trucks one on top of
the other,” were “raped at the hospital by hooded individuals." 59
68.
In the legal proceedings (in both the written and oral stages) before this
Court, it was the representation of the victims and their next of kin, and not the
Commission, who insisted on relating the protection norms of the Convention of
Belém do Pará 60 (specifically its Articles 4 and 7) with the violations to the
American Convention on Human Rights. This exercise comes to attend the
necessary gender analysis in the present case. Article 4 of the Convention of Belém
do Pará states that “every woman” has the right to “recognition, enjoyment,
exercise, and protection” of all the human rights enshrined in international
instruments on the matter, among which it expressly mentioned the rights to life,
humane treatment, to not be submitted to tortures, to respect to “the inherent
dignity of her person." 61
69.
And, through Article 7 of the Convention of 1994, the States Parties agree to
pursue a series of measures to “prevent, investigate, punish, and eradicate” the
different forms of violence against women. In the present case of the Castro Castro
Prison, where, for the first time in the history of this Court, the gender analysis is
set forth – to my satisfaction as a Judge – by the representatives of the victims
themselves and their next of kin (and not by the Commission) as the true plaintiff
before the Court and as subjects of International Law, the human rights of women
have been violated with special cruelty, constituting the aggravated international
responsibility of the Respondent government.
70.
The operative paragraphs 4 and 6 (and the corresponding paragraphs that
substantiate it) of the present Judgment are issued both over the American
Convention on Human rights and on another two Inter-American sectorial
Conventions: operative paragraph 4 of the Inter-American Convention Against
Torture, and operative paragraph 6 on the latter as well as the Inter-American
Convention to Prevent, Punish, and Eradicate Violence against Women (Convention
of Belém do Pará). The mentioned Inter-American sectorial Convention are not
uniformed in their corresponding clauses that attribute jurisdiction, which has
prevented this Court from issuing judgment, up to this date, on both of them: the
Inter-American Convention against Torture 62 and the Inter-American Convention on
the Forced Disappearance of Persons. 63
.
IACHR, Transcription of the Public Hearing in the case of the Castro Castro Prison..., op. cit.
supra n. (9), pp. 30-31, para. 25.
59
.
Ratified by the Peruvian State on 04.02.1996.
.
Article 4 (a), (b), (d), and (e).
60
61
.
Cf. IACHR, cases of Paniagua Morales, Villagrán Morales (Street Children), Cantoral Benavides,
Tibi, Hermanos Gómez Paquiyauri, Maritza Urrutia, Gutiérrez Soler, Baldeón García, and Vargas Areco.
62
.
Cases of Molina Theissen, Blanco Romero, Gómez Palomino, and Goiburú et al. – Besides, the
Inter-American Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Persons with
63