1
CONCURRENT OPINION OF JUDGE CECILIA MEDINA-QUIROGA
IN THE CASE OF ACEVEDO-JARAMILLO ET AL. V. PERU
1.
I have concurred with the adoption of operative paragraph 7 of this Judgment,
for I am not against granting a compensation for pecuniary damage to the dismissed
workers with respect to whom the orders of amparo directing their reinstatement to
their jobs were not complied with. However, I have a difference of opinion in relation
to the method whereby said compensation is to be to figured out, according to the
Court, by the domestic courts.
2.
Regarding said workers, the judgments of the Peruvian courts vary in scope.
Some of them ordered reinstatement of the workers and back payment of the wages
they had lost from the moment they had been dismissed. Others, on the contrary,
ordered reinstatement and denied the prayer for back payment.
3.
For the first group of workers, the Court stated that Peru should comply with
the orders and therefore that the compensations should be figured out as from the
date of their unlawful dismissals (paragraph 302).
4.
For the second group of workers, the Court established that the basis for the
compensation would also be the wages lost, but only as from the date the orders
directing reinstatement became final (paragraphs 303 and 304). I do not concur with
this.
5.
Pecuniary damage “implies the loss of, or detriment to, the income of the
victim.” It looks evident that this loss had effect as from the moment these workers
were unfairly dismissed, for which reason the pecuniary damage also started to appear
as from that moment. I do not concur with the consideration made by the Court in
paragraph 303 of the Judgment. As the Court sets a compensation, it is not restricted
to say only that the order that has not been complied with must be enforced and it has
the power, that I think it should have exercised, to assess the damage on an
independent basis. This would have also remedied the injustice of ascribing different
consequences to similar events and, thus, adversely affect some of the dismissed
workers.
Cecila Medina-Quiroga
Judge
Pablo Saavedra-Alessandri
Secretary