[...] Article 131. In all cases, disorderly drunks, whatever their status or condition, shall be held in the detainee room.140 82. The prerogatives of the Federal Police were enshrined in the Organic Law of the Federal Police, Decree-Law No. 333/58 of January 14, 1958. Article 6 established in subsection i) established the powers of the Federal Police as follows: “1. Apply the police edicts within the competence assigned by the Code of Criminal Procedures.”141 This prerogative of police detention by application of edicts coexisted with detention for identity verification, these constituting the two main grounds for police detention without a warrant. 83. The arrest of Mr. Acosta Martínez was carried out in application of the Police Edicts and the Regulation of Procedures for Misdemeanor Offenses. This regulation does not comply with the principle of legality and prior definition, as it has been understood by this Court in its case law. In this regard, the Court has established that “the categorization of an act as unlawful and the establishment of its legal effects must pre-exist the conduct of the individual who is considered to be an offender because, to the contrary, people would not be able to conduct themselves in keeping with a valid known legal system that expresses social rebuke and its consequences.”142 Thus, in order to prosecute criminal offenses, their scope of application must be defined as clearly and precisely as possible.143 84. In this specific case, the Edict on Drunkenness and Other Forms of Intoxication did not comply with this requirement of certainty, since it defines as punishable conduct being “in a complete state of drunkenness,” wording that, in addition to being ambiguous and indeterminate, gives the authorities a broad discretion in applying it.144 Complete drunkenness is not empirically verifiable behavior. Rather, it is subject to a value judgment by the police officers in charge of enforcing the edict.145 The State itself underscored in its final arguments that the Police Edicts “were legal provisions that empowered the security forces to detain and prosecute people for committing minor offenses. In reality, they established a series of vague provisions that severely punish both so-called ‘moral or political disorder’ and the personal status of individuals." 85. Likewise, drunkenness, sanctioned by the old edict, is more a transitory condition of a person, rather than a conduct. The Court has already found that the exercise of the state’s ius puniendi on the basis of the personal characteristics of the agent and not the act committed “substitutes the Criminal System based on the crime committed, proper of the criminal system of a democratic society, for a Criminal System based on the situation of the 140 Rules of Procedure for Misdemeanor Offenses (RRPF6) (evidence file, folios 1670 and 1681) 141 Organic Law of the Federal Police, Decree Law No. 333/1958 of January 14, 1958 (evidence file, folio 1639). Case of Baena Ricardo et al. v. Panama. Merits, Reparations, and Costs. Judgment of February 2, 2001. Series C No. 72, para. 106, and Case of Pollo Rivera et al. v. Peru. Merits, Reparations, and Costs. Judgment of October 21, 2016. Series C No. 319, para. 219. 142 Cf. Case of Castillo Petruzzi et al. v. Peru. Merits, Reparations, and Costs. Judgment of May 30, 1999. Series C No. 52, para. 121, and Case of Pollo Riviera et al. v. Peru, supra, para. 219 143 As the expert Juan Pablo Gomara pointed out, referring to the police edicts in force in Argentina at the time of the facts: “These prohibitions did not describe empirically-verifiable behavior but rather involve a complete value judgment the truth or falsity of which cannot be predicated. These evaluations regarding manners of being, sexual orientation, personal or social status, clearly amount to criminal law based on the identity of the offender, incompatible with the principle of legality” (Expert opinion given at the public hearing by Juan Pablo Gomara—evidence file, folio 1484). 144 145 Expert opinion given at the public hearing by Juan Pablo Gomara (evidence file, folio 1484). 28