REQUEST FOR INTERPRETATION AND PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE
COURT
1.
On November 17, 2021, the Inter-American Court issued a judgment on this
case, and so notif ied the parties and the Inter-American Commission on Human rights
(hereinaf ter also “the Inter-American Commission” or “the Commission”) on January
26, 2022.
2.
On April 22, 2022, the State submitted a request f or interpretation in order to
“elaborate on the content of the [j]udgment so as to endorse the direct incorporation
into the catalog of protected rights derived f rom article 26 of the Convention”.
Moreover, it requested the Court to rule over the “issues concerning the rights
developed in the judgment that are not based on treaties subject to ratif ication by
States.”
3.
On April 29, 2022, pursuant to Article 68(2) of the Rules of Procedure and
f ollowing the instructions of the President of the Court, the Court’s Secretariat sent the
af orementioned request f or interpretation to the victims’ representative (hereinaf ter,
“the representative”) 1 and the Commission and gave them until May 30, 2022, to
present in writing any observations they considered relevant. The Commission
submitted its observations on May 30, 2022. Moreover, the representative submitted
its observations on May 31, 2022. By means of note of the Tribunal’s Secretariat of
June 2, 2022, the parties and the Commission were inf ormed that said brief was time barred; theref ore, f ollowing the instructions of the Presidency of the Court, it was
neither transmitted to the State nor the Commission nor considered during the
deliberation of this Judgment.
II
JURISDICTION
4.
Article 67 of the American Convention establishes that:
The judgment of the Court shall be final and not subject to appeal. In case of disagreement as to the
meaning or scope of the judgment, the Court shall interpret it at the request of any of the
parties, provided the request is made within ninety days from the date of notification of the
judgment.
5.
Pursuant to the cited article, the Inter-American Court is competent to interpret
its judgments. In order to examine the requests f or interpretation and to decide in
respect of this matter, the Court must, whenever possible, be composed of the same
judges who delivered the corresponding judgment, in accordance with Article 68(3) of
the Rules of Procedure. On this occasion, the Court is mostly composed of the same
judges who delivered the judgment whose interpretation has been requested.
III
ADMISSIBILITY
6.
It is the responsibility of the Court to verif y whether the request presented by the
State meets the requirements established in the norms applicable to a request f or
César Augusto Canil Xirum of Centro de Acción Legal de Derechos Humanos ( Hum an R ights Le g al
Action Center or “CALDH” for its acronym in Spanish).
1
2