6
21.
The criterion adopted by the Court in the present Judgment in the case of the
Five Pensioners versus Peru correctly considers that one cannot hinder the right of the
petitioners of access to justice at international level, which finds expression in their
faculty to indicate the rights which they deem violated. The respect for the exercise of
that right is required from the States Parties to the Convention, at the level of their
respective domestic legal orders8, and it would not make any sense if it were denied in
the international procedure under the Convention itself. The new criterion of the Court
clearly confirms the understanding whereby the process is not and end in itself, but
rather a means of realization of Law, and, ultimately, of justice.
22.
Though it is certain that only the States Parties and the Commission can submit
a case to the Court (Article 61(1) of the Convention), it is also certain that, in providing
for reparations, and referring to "the injured party" ("la parte lesionada / a parte
prejudicada / la partie lésée" - Article 63(1)), the Convention refers to the victims, and
not to the Commission. The artificiality of the formula of Article 61(1) of the Convention,
- which, when adopted in 1969 gave expression to a dogma of the past, - does not
resist to the overwhelming reality that the petitioners are the true complaining
substantive party before the Court, as subjects of the International Law of Human
Rights and, in my understanding, also of general International Law9.
23.
If, as already pointed out, before national tribunals the faculty of the individual
complainants to sustantiate their own allegations of violations of their rights is secured,
how to justify the denial or restriction of that faculty to the individual petitioners before
the international tribunals of human rights? 34 years having lapsed since the adoption
of the American Convention, at last the reality of the facts is leading to the overcoming
of the unsustainable capitis diminutio of the individuals, titulaires of rights, in the
procedure under the Convention (Article 61(1)), - without prejudice to the juridical
security and of the preservation of the role, distinct from that of the petitioners, of the
Commission. The assertion of the international juridical personality and capacity of the
human being fulfils a true need of the contemporary international legal order.
24.
In fact, the assertion of those juridical personality and capacity constitutes the
truly revolutionary legacy of the evolution of the international legal doctrine in the
second half of the XXth century. The time has come to overcome the classic limitations
of the legitimatio ad causam in International Law, which have so much hindered its
8
.
The American Convention requires not only the access itself to justice at the level of domestic law
(Article 25), but also the realization itself of material justice. To that end, the Convention
determines the
observance of the juridico-procedural guarantees (Article 8), these latter taken lato sensu, encompassing the
whole of procedural requisites which ought to be observed so that all the individuals can adequately defend
themselves from any act emanated from the State power which may affect their rights. Cf., in this sense (wide
scope of the due process): IACtHR, case of the Constitutional Tribunal versus Peru, Judgment (on the merits) of
31.01.2001, par. 69; IACtHR, case Ivcher Bronstein versus Peru, Judgment (on the merits) of 06.02.2001, par.
102; IACtHR, case Baena Ricardo and Others versus Panama, Judgment (on the merits) of 02.02.2001, par.
125. In this last case, the Inter-American Court rightly warned that "in any subject matter, even in labour and
administrative matters, the discretionality of the administration has boundaries that may not be surpassed, one
such boundary being respect for human rights. (...) The administration (...) may not invoke public order to
reduce discretionally the guarantees of its subjects" (ibid., par. 126).
9
.
A.A. Cançado Trindade, "A Personalidade e Capacidade Jurídicas do Indivíduo como Sujeito do Direito
Internacional", in Jornadas de Derecho Internacional (Mexico City, December 2001), Washington D.C.,
Subsecretariat of Legal Affairs of the OAS, 2002, pp. 311-347.
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