VII.1 RIGHTS TO PERSONAL LIBERTY, TO JUDICIAL GUARANTEES AND TO JUDICIAL PROTECTION92 A) Arguments of the Commission and of the parties 85. Initial detentions. – The Commission and the representatives alleged that the detentions of the alleged victims were unlawful, in violation of Article 7 (1) and (2) of the Convention, since the domestic legislation required a judicial order or an en flagrante crime in order for there to be a deprivation of liberty93 and that in no case is it shown that these two requirements were met. 86. Preventive deprivations of liberty. – The Commission and the representatives also argued that the decisions of preventive detention are based on Article 182 of the CCP, which only required indicia of criminal responsibility for a crime punishable with deprivation of liberty. They, therefore, maintained that the alleged victims were preventively deprived of their liberty without considering the danger of fleeing or of obstructing the investigations and, thus, the preventive deprivations were arbitrary and punitive, and not precautionary, measures. They, therefore, asserted that the deprivations of liberty infringed the presumption of innocence. They concluded that the State was responsible for the failure to observe Articles 7(1), 7(3) and 8(2) of the Convention, in relation to Articles 1(1) and 2 thereof. 94 87. Duration of the preventive deprivations of liberty. – The Commission and the representatives argued that the duration of the preventive deprivations of liberty of four of the alleged victims (10 months in the cases of María Angélica, Belkis and Fernando González and eight in the case of Wilmer Barliza) was unreasonable because of the lack of a periodic review of valid treaty-based grounds to maintain the measure. Therefore, they considered that Venezuela violated, to the detriment of those four persons, Articles 7(1), 7(5) and 8(2) of the Convention, in relation to Articles 1(1) and 2 thereof. 88. Right to appeal the detention. – The Commission and the representatives argued that the alleged victims filed: a) a request for alternative measures to preventive detention that they claim did not receive a response from the State and b) another request of a precautionary measure rather than preventive detention, filed when that measure was already ordered, which was rejected without an examination of the arguments alleging the lack of evidence of a possible flight or the obstruction of the investigations. They also alleged that the orders of their detention were not duly 92 Articles 7, 8 and 25 of the American Convention on Human Rights. The Commission argued the following: “The legislation in Venezuela that governs detentions during a criminal investigation was examined by the Inter-American Court in the case of Barreto Leiva v. Venezuela, where it indicated that, according to the Constitution and the Code of Criminal Procedure, in order that a detention be lawful under the American Convention a judicial order is necessary, unless the person had been detained en flagrante.” 93 The representatives also emphasized that the deprivations of liberty were arbitrary even though they were related to an investigation, since there was no procedural purpose that would justify them. They maintained that the State “did not provide any evidence that would justify that the [alleged] victims could interfere in the investigation or that there was a risk of fleeing.” 94 23