officials of the Dominican State.” The victims, “were never allowed to communicate with the outside world, were not informed about the possibility of being brought before a judge, or allowed to contest the legitimacy and legality of the measure that determined the group’s arrest and detention.” Consequently, they asked the Court to declare the violation of Article 7 of the American Convention. 123. The State did not present any specific arguments regarding the alleged violation of Article 7 of the American Convention. However, in its final written arguments, it asserted that the presumed victims “[r]emained [detained] in the country for a few hours, because they entered Dominican territory without documents in the early morning hours, so that they had to wait for the formalities to be initiated during working hours in order to be returned to their country of origin, based on their condition and the events that occurred, without at any time being subject to any mistreatment or humiliation, and under the Protocol of Understanding on Repatriation Mechanisms signed by the Dominican Republic and Haiti on December 2, 1999.” 2. Considerations of the Court 124. In this section, the Court will examine the detention and consequent violation of the right to personal liberty alleged by the Commission and the representatives. The alleged violations of judicial guarantees established in Article 8 of the Convention owing to the migratory status of the presumed victims will be assessed together with the prohibition of collective expulsion in the following section (infra paras. 145 to 178). In this regard, since the detention was carried out on the Dominican territory and not when they crossed the border (infra para. 151), when the State could, in principle, have held them for an identity check,175 the Court will analyze the alleged detention in light of the requirements of exceptionality of Article 7 of the American Convention,176 and not as deprivation of liberty for identity verification and/or border control. 125. Thus, the Court has indicated that Article 7 of the American Convention contains a general rule, established in the first paragraph, that “[e]very person has the right to personal liberty and security,” and another rule with specific characteristics consisting of guarantees that protect the right not to be deprived of liberty unlawfully (Art. 7(2)) or arbitrarily (Art. 7(3)), to be informed of the reasons for the detention and notified of the charges (Art. 7(4)), to be subject to judicial review for the deprivation of liberty (Art. 7(5)) 175 Cf. ECHR, Saadi v. United Kingdom. [Grand Chamber] Application No. 13229/03, of 29 January 2008, paras. 64 to 66; Human Rights Committee. Madafferi and Madafferi v. Australia, Communication No. 1011/2001, Views of 26 August 2004, para. 9.2. 176 Article 7. Right to Personal Liberty 1. Every person has the right to personal liberty and security. 2. No one shall be deprived of his physical liberty except for the reasons and under the conditions established beforehand by the constitution of the State Party concerned or by a law established pursuant thereto. 3. No one shall be subject to arbitrary arrest or imprisonment. 4. Anyone who is detained shall be informed of the reasons for his detention and shall be promptly notified of the charge or charges against him. 5. Any person detained shall be brought promptly before a judge or other officer authorized by law to exercise judicial power and shall be entitled to trial within a reasonable time or to be released without prejudice to the continuation of the proceedings. His release may be subject to guarantees to assure his appearance for trial. 6. Anyone who is deprived of his liberty shall be entitled to recourse to a competent court, in order that the court may decide without delay on the lawfulness of his arrest or detention and order his release if the arrest or detention is unlawful. In States Parties whose laws provide that anyone who believes himself to be threatened with deprivation of his liberty is entitled to recourse to a competent court in order that it may decide on the lawfulness of such threat, this remedy may not be restricted or abolished. The interested party or another person in his behalf is entitled to seek these remedies. […] 37