2 measure, even when it is carried out under the aegis of justice. If it is unjust to punish in order to find out whether it is possible to punish, we need to find other arguments – subject to finding, better still, alternative measures to the deprivation of liberty – to support the legitimacy of such a measure. In other words, we need to establish that the precautionary deprivation of liberty is “necessary” from the perspective of justice itself – in the specific case, evidently – and has been ordered for the reasons and considerations that allow the State to restrict the rights of the individual. There is no absolute law; any law is limited by the rights of others, the common good, the general welfare, the safety and security of all, always within the framework – strict and demanding – of a democratic society (Article 30 and 32 of the American Convention on Human Rights). Incidentally, the same observations should be made with regard to the other element of deprivation of liberty: punitive imprisonment, an authentic punishment that should be reduced to its most indispensable expression. But that is not the subject of this opinion. 6. Preventive detention is just one of the measures used by the State to ensure – in a cautionary or precautionary manner - the satisfactory administration of justice and effective compliance with jurisdictional decisions. In this regard, preventive detention obeys the same factors and should respect the same rules that regulate other precautionary measures. They all anticipate the trial to a certain extent, in order to safeguard the trial, if I may use these terms. However, preventive detention is the most intense and devastating of these measures; incomparably more severe that surveillance by the authority, or the seizure of assets, the prohibition to carry out certain operations or activities, or the limitation of freedom of movement, etc. In reality, all precautionary measures give rise to damage that it is difficult to repair, although it can be compensated: preventive detention causes an absolutely irreparable damage, which is the loss of time of life, with all that this signifies; hence the need to examine it and adopt it with infinite care. 7. Even though it has been said so often, it is worth repeating that there is an almost insoluble tension between the great contribution made by penal liberalism, which rescues the rights of the individual and curtails the powers of the authority: the presumption or principle of innocence (the root of many special rights, and the grounds for numerous public obligations) on the one hand, and preventive detention on the other. The persistence of the latter – not to mention its proliferation and exacerbation – militate directly against that principle. How can we justify the deprivation of liberty of someone who is presumably innocent and should be treated in accordance with that presumption in his favor, which guarantees his rights? How can we imprison an innocent person, render him incommunicado, restrict the exercise of other rights that are inevitably affected, and expose him to the public as presumably – or certainly – guilty? 8. Despite arguments promoting the rational reduction of preventive deprivation of liberty, in several countries we have seen the growing – even disproportionate – use of this measure, which is supposed to be precautionary. This increase is a result of what I have called the “desperation and exasperation” of society (public opinion or the sources that inform and manage it), in the face of the growth in crime. The fear that this imposes on society, as a result of the impotence of the formal and informal instruments of social control – inefficiency, insufficiency, indifference, collusion – suggests a simple and expedient, although questionable and usually ineffective, mechanism to the legislator: the imposing of preventive detention in a growing number of situations. And this is almost always under conditions that are equal to or worse than those that exist in the elevated number of places of confinement that dishonor their designation as centers of readaptation, rehabilitation, reeducation, reinsertion, etc. and which are constantly denounced in the rulings of the InterAmerican Court.