54 2. In countries that have not abolished the death penalty, it may be imposed only for the most serious crimes and pursuant to a final judgment rendered by a competent court and in accordance with a law establishing such punishment, enacted prior to the commission of the crime. The application of such punishment shall not be extended to crimes to which it does not presently apply. 3. The death penalty shall not be reestablished in states that have abolished it. 4. In no case shall capital punishment be inflicted for political offenses or related common crimes. 5. Capital punishment shall not be imposed upon persons who, at the time the crime was committed, were under 18 years old or over 70 years old; nor shall it be applied to pregnant women. 6. Every person condemned to death shall have the right to apply for amnesty, pardon, or commutation of sentence, which may be granted in all cases. Capital punishment shall not be imposed while such a petition is pending decision by the competent authority. 103. It has been established that the criminal procedure that culminated in the conviction of Mr. Fermín Ramírez did not respect the guarantees of the due process (supra paras. 66 through 80). However, the conviction has not been executed in virtue of the internal remedies presented and the precautionary measures issued by the Commission as well as the provisional measures ordered by the Court. If Mr. Fermín Ramírez had been executed as a consequence of the process followed against him, there would have been an arbitrary deprivation of the right to life, in the terms of Article 4 of the Convention.93 Since this is not the case, the Court considers that the State has not violated the right enshrined in Article 4(1) of the American Convention, in relation to Article 1(1) of the same. * * * 104. On the other hand, the representatives argued that the State had violated Article 4(6) of the American Convention because Guatemala did not regulate a pardon when the request for grace presented by Mr. Fermín Ramírez was decided upon, reason for which both the procedure and the decision were arbitrary (supra para. 100). 105. The Court acknowledges that the State gave Mr. Ramírez access to the measure of grace and that it processed and issued a ruling on said appeal. Mr. Fermín Ramírez’s defense counsel presented the measure of grace on July 27, 1999 and based its request on Decree Number 159 with the purpose that the death penalty to which he had been convicted be commuted (supra para. 54(28)). It is on the record that one day before Agreement Number 235-2000 that decided said appeal was published in the Official Newspaper, the same newspaper published Decree Number 32-2000, which expressly revoked Decree Number 159 (supra para. 54(29)) based on the following considerations: […] That the National Legislative Assembly of the Republic of Guatemala approved, on April nineteenth eighteen ninety two Decree Number 159 that regulated the power that Article seventy eight of the Political Constitution in force at that time, granted the 93 Cfr. The Right to Information on Consular Assistance in the Framework of the Guarantees of the Due Process of Law. Advisory Opinion OC-16/99 of October 1, 1999. Series A No. 16, para. 136.