61. Having established the foregoing, the Court will proceed to examine the alleged violation of the right to life through the imposition of the death penalty on Mr. Archila Pérez. In this regard, it should be recalled that the Court has recently emphasized in the case of Martínez Coronado v. Guatemala that in the exceptional cases in which States are allowed to apply the death penalty, such possibility is subject to a set of strict limitations.74 On the one hand, it provides that the death penalty may be imposed only for the most serious crimes (Article 4(2)) and, on the other hand, it absolutely excludes its application for political crimes or for ordinary crimes related to political crimes (Article 4(4)). Likewise, for purposes of examining the alleged violation of the freedom from ex post facto laws (principle of legality), it should be recalled that the Court has repeatedly established that it is one of the central elements of criminal prosecution in a democratic society.75 62. The Court highlights that in the instant case, the conviction of Mr. Rodríguez Revolorio, Mr. López Calo and Mr. Archila Pérez applied Article 132 of the Guatemalan Criminal Code, in force at that time, which regulated the criminal offense of murder (supra para. 32). Specifically, Mr. Rodríguez Revolorio, Mr. López Calo, and Mr. Archila Pérez were sentenced to death under the second paragraph of that provision, which provided for the application of that penalty " if the circumstances of the act and of the occasion, the way it was carried out and the determinant motives reveal a particular dangerousness of the agent”. 63. This Court has already had the opportunity to rule specifically on the application of Article 132 of the Criminal Code and the concept of "future dangerousness" in the cases of Martínez Coronado v. Guatemala and Fermín Ramírez v. Guatemala. In those judgments, it was decideed that the aforementioned provision was contrary to the American Convention, particularly insofar as it violated Article 9 of the Convention, and it was ordered to bring the provision into line with international human rights law. In particular, in the case of Fermín Ramírez v. Guatemala, the Court said: "94. In the opinion of this Court, the problem presented by the citing of the dangerousness cannot only be analyzed in light of the guarantees of the due process, within Article 8 of the Convention. This citing has a greater scope and seriousness. In effect, it clearly constitutes an expression of the exercise of the state’s ius puniendi over the basis of the personal characteristics of the agent and not the act committed, that is, it 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 perpetrator, which opens the door to authoritarianism precisely in a subject in which the juridical rights of greatest hierarchy are at stake. 95. The assessment of the agent’s dangerousness implies the judge’s appreciation with regard to the possibility that the defendant will commit criminal acts in the future, that is, it adds to the accusation for the acts committed, the prediction of future acts that will probably occur. [...] 96. Therefore, the introduction in the criminal text of the dangerousness of the agent as a criterion for the criminal classification of the acts and the application of certain sanctions is not compatible with the freedom from ex post facto law and, therefore, contrary to the Convention. 97. [...] [i]f the States, pursuant to Article 2 of the American Convention, have a positive obligation to adopt the legislative measures necessary to guarantee the exercise of the rights recognized in the Convention, it follows, then, that they also must refrain both from promulgating laws that disregard or impede the free exercise of these rights, and from suppressing or modifying the existing laws protecting them. These acts would likewise constitute a violation of Article 2 of the Convention. Cf. Case of Martínez Coronado v. Guatemala, supra, para. 62. Cf. Case of Fermín Ramírez v. Guatemala, supra, para. 90, and Case of Martínez Coronado v. Guatemala, supra, para. 60. 74 75 19