32 Every person has the right to a hearing, with due guarantees and within a reasonable time, by a competent, independent, and impartial tribunal, previously established by law, in the substantiation of any accusation of a criminal nature made against him or for the determination of his rights and obligations of a civil, labor, fiscal, or any other nature. 104. Article 25(1) of the American Convention guarantees the right to judicial protection as follows: Everyone has the right to simple and prompt recourse, or any other effective recourse, to a competent court or tribunal for protection against acts that violate his fundamental rights recognized by the constitution or laws of the state concerned or by this Convention, even though such violation may have been committed by persons acting in the course of their official duties. 105. There are two issues that the Court must address regarding the alleged violations of Articles 8(1) and 25, all in connection with Articles 1(1) and 2, of the American Convention: a) b) the reasonableness of the length of the criminal proceedings; and whether the domestic law of the State provides an effective remedy against either the existence or the application of corporal punishment. * 106. The Court notes that, after the judgment delivered by the Court of Appeal of Trinidad and Tobago on February 28, 1996, Mr. Caesar still had the possibility to apply for leave to appeal to the Privy Council. The Court cannot share the Commission’s view that Mr. Caesar was subjected to a total delay of fifteen years in the proceedings, to be calculated between his initial arrest in 1983 and his “attempt to pursue an appeal before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in 1998”. That “attempt” consisted in a legal opinion rendered in November 1998 by counsel in London, at the request of Mr. Caesar’s lawyers, and therefore cannot be equated to a procedural step in a judicial process. The length of the proceedings must be calculated, therefore, on the basis that the final judgment in the case was reached with the decision of the Court of Appeal of Trinidad and Tobago on February 28, 1996. 107. Although neither the Commission nor the representatives raised the issue of the Court´s ratione temporis jurisdiction, it is incumbent on the Tribunal to consider this question in the context of the actual duration of the criminal proceedings in order to come to a conclusion as to the reasonableness of the time elapsed, for the purpose of deciding whether there was a violation of the rights enshrined in Article 8(1) of the Convention. 108. On this point, the Court has held as follows: When codifying general law on this issue, Article 28 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties establishes that: Unless a different intention appears from the treaty or is otherwise established, its provisions do not bind a party in relation to any act or fact which took place