Hence, all the natural and legal persons indicated above have a right to know the judgments
in full, especially when the provisions that regulate the judgments include no indication that
the Court is empowered to decide that part of them is confidential or secret. Article 32(1)(b)
of the Rules of Procedure merely authorizes the Court not to publish “documents from the
case file” that it considers “irrelevant” or “unsuitable” and, evidently, the amount or
quantum of the compensation cannot be considered, per se, to fall into these categories, as
the Judgment appears to suggest.
C. Right of the injured party
But, with regard to the above, it should also not be overlooked that the matter in question
entails, in particular, the exercise of the right of the party who has been injured by the
human rights violations to claim from the respective State, under the second sentence of
Article 63 de the Convention, reparation for “the consequences of the measure or situation
that constituted the breach of such right or freedom […] and that fair compensation be paid”
as decided in the corresponding judgment. Thus, the question is how “the injured party” can
claim, at the domestic level, the “fair compensation” decided in an international judgment if
this judgment does not include the respective amount; a circumstance that would evidently
impede the assessment of whether or not the latter is fair. This is precisely what would
happen in the case of the Judgment.
D. The right of third parties
The foregoing is especially relevant in the case of the right of third parties who were not
parties to the proceedings. This is the point that is raised in the Judgment when it decides
that the State must establish an appropriate mechanism for the accreditation before the
Ombudsman’s Office of the direct family members of the 89 deceased victims who were not
identified in the Merits Report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that
originated this case and must also announce in different media that an effort is being made
to identify the said family members so that they can “be provided with reparation as
beneficiaries of the measures set out in the friendly settlement agreement” (paras. 85 to
90).
In other words, the issue that arises in relation to the decision made in the instant case is
how the said family members, third parties who did not take part in the proceedings before
the Court and whose number and identity is unknown, can determine whether or not it is
desirable to accredit themselves as such in order to exercise their right to be provided with
reparation, recognized in the Judgment in this case, if they do not know the amount of the
compensation ordered in it and cannot access this information.
E. Security reasons
Lastly, we must take into account that, not only are the “security reasons” cited in the
agreement to justify the requested confidentiality not explained or recorded in the
proceedings, but also, if they exist, they are probably related to the eventual controversies
or disputes that could arise among the victims’ next of kin in this case based on their
expectations concerning the quantum or amount of the compensation. Therefore, it might
be possible to maintain that the “security reasons” cited, although not explained, in either
the agreement or the Judgment, are related in this case to creating the conditions required
for the agreement to be endorsed by the Court and that, consequently, once this
endorsement was obtained, the requested confidentiality would not be necessary in this
regard.
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