7
Geneva Conventions, and “other international instruments” - as is indicated in para.
209 of the judgment - regarding “non-derogable human rights (such as the right to
life and the right not to be submitted to torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment.”
V. PROBATIVE MATTERS
A) Admissibility of the evidence
26.
Some probative matters, which should be commented on, are examined in
the judgment. The importance and transcendence of the evidence in a jurisdictional
proceeding is obvious. It has even been said that the proceeding constitutes, in
essence, a broad probative opportunity directed at verifying the de facto conditions
that support the legal claims. The juridical consequences are constructed on the
basis of the facts. Consequently, the judge must give special attention to the issue
of the evidence before beginning the juridical consideration, and, particularly, do so
in a firm and reasonably certain way, so that justice may be done in the specific
case. This leads to identifying some points on the admissibility, effectiveness and
evaluation of the evidence, and also on the conditions for its presentation in the
natural context of the accusatory system established by the Convention, its Statute
and the Rules of Procedure of the Court.
27.
The judgment on merits observes that certain documents “lack
authentication, present defects and do not comply with the minimum formal
requirements for admissibility, because it is impossible to establish precisely their
source, and also the procedure by which they were obtained. Those circumstances
prevent these documents from being granted value as evidence” (para. 105). In the
instant case, these are documents attributed to Government agencies, which have
not been confirmed by the latter; they contain deletions that prevent knowing
everything that is written in them or the names of the hypothetical deponents,
whose testimonies they present, and who cannot be questioned critically by the
other party, in accordance with the rules of the system whereby both parties are
heard, or eventually examined by the Court.
28.
The Court is not denying the truth of the information contained in such
documents, which it does not even discuss. It rejects them because they do not
satisfy the indispensable “minimum requirements for admissibility”, as the judgment
indicates. Consequently, it is not possible to begin to evaluate them, because this
presumes that they have been admitted. I have already stated my opinion about
this evidence, in a concurring opinion to the Order of the Court of June 19, 1998, in
the case referred to in this judgment. In this particular opinion, I analyzed the
disputed points of this evidence in greater detail and also observed that its admission
would make it impracticable to fulfill the various categorical provisions of the Court's
Rules of Procedure, such as those contained in Articles 41 (Questions put during the
hearings), 46 (Convocation of witnesses and expert witnesses), 47 (Oath or solemn
declaration by witnesses and expert witnesses) and 48 (Objections to witnesses).
29.
In my opinion, the Court cannot admit evidence that does not meet the said
minimum requirements for admissibility, with the argument that the Court has broad
powers to examine it and evaluate it, linked to other information or circumstances.
Indeed, the admission of evidence which is manifestly vitiated would alter the nature
of a proceeding governed by democratic principles and would lead also to accepting
other means of evidence that are rejected by the law or illegally obtained, taken to