the Rules, the Court, on its own motion, has obtained the documents provided by expert
Jilani during the public hearing, since these support her expert opinion, together with
some of the documents presented by the representatives for the purpose of contesting an
argument of the State, presented for the first time during the public hearing. 55 The Court
will consider, where pertinent, the information contained therein, bearing in mind the body
of evidence, the observations of the parties and the rules of sound judgment.
59.
The Court also notes that the representatives submitted, with their final written
arguments, receipts for expenses related to the litigation of this case. In this regard, the
Court will only consider those referring to costs and expenses incurred after the
submission of the pleadings and motions brief.
60.
Furthermore, the Court notes that the State objected to certain documents offered
by the Inter-American Commission with its submission brief (supra para. 1). In this
regard, it alleged “a number of irregularities ranging from illegible and incomplete
documents, to inadmissible evidence and abundant documentation that is not related to
the facts disputed and does not serve to illustrate the context in which the victims allege
that the facts occurred.” In particular, the State argued that “the written testimonial
statements presented by the C[omission] are not valid because they were not rendered
before a notary public.” 56 Similarly, it objected to “a number of documents in the file
related to the […] the investigation of the death of [A.A.]”, which were incomplete or
illegible, or contained inconsistencies. The State also objected to the presentation of “a
psychosocial report carried out by [H.M.]”, arguing that based on this report “the damage
suffered by the family [A] cannot be assessed, because the expert merely conducts 22
interviews lasting between one and two hours each” with the same number of
individuals. 57 Finally, it asked the Court not to admit as evidence a DVD identified as
“Interviews [M.I.] 2009”, which forms part of the file before the Commission, since it was
not used in the preparation of the Merits Report and was not included in the list of
attachments presented by the latter.
61.
Likewise, the State objected to various pieces of evidence submitted by the
representatives with their brief of pleadings and motions, arguing that they were illegible
or incomplete, 58 or were cited in the footnotes of said brief but were not submitted until
after the Secretariat had requested clarification in that respect. 59 It also challenged the
admissibility of the documents presented with the clarifications submitted by the
representatives at the request of the Court, pointing out that this brief was sent without
its cover page. According to the State, the representatives tried to submit the entire brief
mentioned extemporaneously. Furthermore, it emphasized that the petitioners did not resubmit the interviews of F.A., I.A., D.A. and “X.A.”, presented in DVD format, despite a
note from the Secretariat dated February 28, 2013, confirming that it had not been
possible to play them.
55
During the public hearing, the State challenged the status of B.A. as a human rights defender. The
documents submitted by the representatives are the following: Note of the Presidential Secretariat for Women, of
June 23, 2009 (Merits file, page 2074); Awards granted to B.A. as Permanent Representative of Women’s
Organizations before the Departmental Development Council of Escuintla (Merits file , page 2075 to 2081); Fax
transmission sheet dated November 12, 2003, sent to MINUGUA by B.A. as Vice-president of the Women’s Network
of Escuintla, supporting the statement “Toward a New Stage in the Construction of Peace” (Merits file, pages 2082
to 2085); Awards granted to B.A. for promoting community organization and participation (Merits file, pages 2086 to
2091), and death certificate of L.L., (Merits file, pages 2092 and 2093).
56
The State explained that it referred to the following statements: Statement of the former municipal Mayor
of December 5, 2010 (File of attachments to submission brief, pages 793 to 797); Statement of a member of the
CICM of December 1, 2010 (File of attachments to submission brief, pages 1346 to 1349); Statement of B.A. of
December 12, 2010 (File of attachments to the brief submitting the case, pages 1351 to 1371), and Statement of
A.A. of October 11, 2004 (File of attachments to submission brief, pages 1376 to 1377). Regarding the
aforementioned statement of B.A., it added that the heading states “January 2005” and that it includes the
statements of other persons who did not sign the document. The Court notes that this was only signed by B.A. on
December 12, 2010. Therefore, the Court will not take into account the testimony of the other people included in
that document.
57
This document was also presented by the representatives, and the State again objected.
58
The State objected to five documents attached to the pleadings and motions brief (Annexes 1, 7, 10, 17
and 23), arguing that these “do not serve a useful purpose because they are not legible and the explanations
provided by the petitioner did not clarify their content […]”. It also objected to the presentation of the copy of the file
before the Public Prosecution Service MP 001/2005/33263, since it was apparently incomplete.
59
The State objected to 23 documents mentioned in the footnotes of the brief of pleadings, motions and
evidence because these were not attached thereto (Merits file, pages 360 and 361).
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