the obligation to take any measures required to adapt its all aspects of the right to personal liberty recognized in which it ratified the Convention. The entry into force exceptions to the obligatory detention established in this the pertinence of continuing the preventive detention of June 18, 1993. laws and judicial practice in order to guarantee Article 7 of the Convention, as of the date on of Decree-Law 25,475, which did not allow decree, implicitly prohibited the assessment of Ms. J., who remained deprived of liberty until iii. Conclusions with regard to the preventive detention 165. Accordingly, the Court concludes that, owing to the absence of adequate grounds for the order of preventive detention and the legal restrictions established in Decree-Law 25,475 that prevented an evaluation of the pertinence of continuing this preventive detention, the State violated paragraphs 1 and 3 of Article 7 of the Convention, in relation to Articles 1(1) and 2 thereof. 166. In addition, the Court has indicated that an order of arbitrary preventive detention may give rise to a violation of the presumption of innocence (supra para. 159). The principle of the presumption of innocence is recognized in Article 8(2) of the American Convention (infra para. 233). This Court has established that, in order to respect the presumption of innocence, when ordering measures that restrict liberty the State must provide the grounds and prove, clearly and with reasoning, in each specific case, the existence of the said requirements contained in the Convention (supra para. 159). 167. This Court takes note that, in its judgment of January 2003, the Constitutional Court considered that this norm was not per se unconstitutional and that it did not signify “a premature declaration of the criminal responsibility of the accused,” because “this procedural action merely opens the criminal proceedings, during which it will ultimately be decided whether or not the accused is responsible for the offense for which he or she is being tried.” According to the Constitutional Court, this norm should not be interpreted literally, “in the sense that once the complaint has been formalized by the representative of the Public Prosecution Service, the criminal judge must irrevocably open the preliminary investigation” and order the detention of the person accused of terrorism, but rather it should be interpreted systematically with article 77 of the Code of Criminal Procedures and article 135 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, so that “the opening of the criminal investigation against the accused, eventually, could result in the issue of a precautionary measure such as judicial preventive detention, if the legal presumptions established in these articles are fulfilled, and not because the criminal judge is obliged to do so.” 281 168. Notwithstanding the above, this Court recalls that it has already concluded that the order of preventive detention against the presumed victim was arbitrary because it did not contain objective and reasoned legal grounds concerning its appropriateness. In addition, it considered that the application of Decree-Law 25,475 prevented the judges from evaluating and justifying the maintenance of the preventive measure in this specific case. Bearing this in mind, as well as the duration of the preventive deprivation of liberty of the presumed victim for almost fourteen months during the first stage of the proceedings, the Court declares that Peru violated the right to the presumption of innocence of Ms. J. established in Article 8(2) of the American Convention, in relation to Articles 1(1) and 2 thereof. A.5 The right to have recourse to a competent judge or court with regard to the legality of her detention A.5.1) Arguments of the Commission and of the parties 169. The Commission indicated that Decree-Law No. 25,659, which prohibited “by law the possibility of filing applications for habeas corpus,” entered into force on August 7, 1992, so that it was applied to Ms. J., who was deprived of liberty until June 1993. The representative indicated that “[i]t is a proven fact […] that, with the Constitution suspended and the inexistence of remedies such as habeas corpus, there was no way in which J.’s family could have access to the protection of the law.” For its part, the State 281 Judgment of the Constitutional Court of January 3, 2003, Case of Marcelino Tineo Silva and more than 5,000 citizens, File No. 010-2002-AI/TC (merits report, folios 1570 and 1572). 53

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