SEPARATE OPINION OF JUDGE SERGIO GARCÍA RAMÍREZ REGARDING THE JUDGMENT DELIVERED BY THE INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN CLAUDE REYES ET AL. V. CHILE OF SEPTEMBER 19, 2006 1. Over the past twenty-five years, the case law of the Inter-American Court has had to explore the meaning and scope of numerous rights and freedoms contained in the American Convention. This re-interpretation of the international treaty, in light of its object and purpose – which focuses on the most comprehensive protection of human rights possible – and imposed by new circumstances, has allowed it to clarify the meaning of the treaty-based principles in an evolutive manner without abandoning the course set by the Convention or changing its fundamental nature. To the contrary, these have been affirmed and enhanced. The reinterpretation of the texts – characteristic of constitutional courts in the national system and of treaty-based courts in the international system – allows the protection of rights to be updated and to respond to innovations resulting from the evolution of relations between the individual and the State. 2. Consequently, the concept maintained by the Inter-American Court, influenced in this matter by European case law, acquires relevance when it affirms that “human rights treaties are living instruments whose interpretation must take into consideration changes over time and current conditions. This evolutive interpretation is consequent with the general rules of interpretation embodied in Article 29 of the American Convention, and also those established in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.” 3. Obviously, none of this implies that the Court should use its imagination and change the general contents of the Convention, without going through the formal normative instances. In brief, it is not a question of “reforming” the text of the Convention, but of developing the legal decisions taken under the Convention, so that they retain their “capacity of response” to situations the authors of the instrument were not faced with, but that concern issues that are essentially the same as those considered in the Convention and that involve specific problems and require relevant solutions, evidently based on the values, principles and norms in force. Inter-American case law has advanced in this direction, governed by the provisions signed in 1969, in which it has generally been able to find a current and pertinent meaning in order to deal with and resolve the circumstances of each new stage. There are numerous examples of this development. 4. Among the issues examined most frequently by the Inter-American Court is the so-called due process of law, a concept developed by Anglo-American case law and regulations. The Pact of San José does not invoke “due process” literally. However, with other words, it organizes the system of hearing, defense and decision contained in that concept. It fulfills this mission – essential for the protection of human rights – in different ways and with different provisions, including Article 8, which is entitled “Right to a Fair Trial” (Note: “Judicial Guarantees” in Spanish). The purpose of this article is to ensure that the State bodies called on to determine an individual’s rights and obligations – in many aspects – will do so using a procedure that provides the individual with the necessary means to defend his legitimate interests and obtain duly reasoned and justified rulings, so that he is protected by the law and safeguarded from arbitrariness. 5. If the beneficiary of the protection offered by the Convention and the entity that applies the protection adhere to the letter of the text, as it was written several decades