78 a) the Court in its case law on reparations has established that pecuniary damage includes consequential damage, lost earnings, and patrimonial damage to the household; b) it is impossible to have authentic evidence of the victims’ jobs and the income they received, because most of them worked in the informal sector of the Venezuelan economy, as can be inferred from the statements of the next of kin of the victims; c) in the cases of extra-judicial executions, consequential damage must include expenses in connection with the search for the corpses, expenses for medical treatment of next of kin, those resulting from exhumation of the bodies, and other similar items. In cases of forced disappearance, they must include expenses originating in steps taken to establish the whereabouts of the victim and those incurred searching for the bodies; d) lost earnings, which correspond in this case to the loss of income caused by the non-voluntary interruption of the victims’ work life, must be quantified based on certain objective indicators (age of the deceased, life expectancy in the country, the victims’ occupational activity, wages earned or minimum monthly wage in force in the country). To estimate the amount of their request in connection with lost earnings in the instant case, said representatives took into account the minimum wage in force in Venezuela;186 e) pecuniary damage to the victim’s household must be compensated for as such, and this refers to various patrimonial losses, such as reduction of household income, bankruptcy of family business, loss of jobs, etc.; and f) compensation must also be paid for expenses in connection with burial and funerary services, incurred by the next of kin of the executed victims (wives, parents, siblings, permanent companions, aunts). 81. Pursuant to the above, the representatives submitted a specific quantitative estimate of compensation for material damage with respect to each of the victims, distinguishing between “consequential damage,” “lost earnings” and the sum of both items. The Court took that estimate into account as a reference element, as pointed out below. Arguments of the Commission 82. With respect to pecuniary damage, the Commission argued as follows: a) the State must be ordered to pay consequential damage and lost earnings in accordance with the request made by the representatives of the victims and of the next of kin; 186 The representatives of the victims and the next of kin asked the Court to take into account the minimum wage in force on November 11, 1999, the date when the Judgment on the merits of the case was delivered, which amounted to 120,000.00 bolívares.

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