its interpretation by the Inter-American Court, the final arbiter of the American Convention, must be
taken into account in this task.281 […]
[…] the mere fact of being a Party to the American Convention means that all the public authorities
and all the organs of the State, including the democratic bodies, judges and other organs involved in
the administration of justice at all levels, are bound by the treaty. This obliges them to exercise a
control of conventionality, […] within the framework of their respective spheres of competences and of
the corresponding procedural rules, either by the enactment or enforcement of laws as regards their
validity and compatibility with the Convention or through the identification, prosecution and deciding
of particular situations and specific cases, bearing in mind the treaty and, as appropriate, the
jurisprudential precedents and guidelines of the Inter-American Court.282
252. In accordance with the above guidelines, all State authorities and bodies,
including judicial, within the framework of their competence and rules, must exercise an
adequate control of conventionality that takes into consideration, in accordance with
international law and the observations found in this judgment, the non-applicability of
the statutory limitations of crimes of serious human rights violations committed during
the military dictatorship. The Court will not monitor those actions.
E.1.2 Strengthening the Office of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes against
Humanity
253. The Court takes notes of the testimony of the expert Chargoñia, who stated that
to effectively advance the cases of serious human rights violations committed during the
dictatorship “it is necessary to have an institutional plan, a budget, and sufficient human
resources.” He noted that “the Office of the Special Prosecutor […] is comprised of a
prosecutor and two deputy prosecutors” and thus does not have “sufficient capacity or
authority to deal with the cases that are spread throughout the courts of the country.”
He underscored that “the Office of the Prosecutor must deal with a whole universe of
cases of serious human rights violations and that it has a budget for just three technical
officials and that it depends mainly on the commitment of the prosecutors is also a factor
of impunity.”
254. The Court, taking into consideration the obvious need to accelerate the actions
to investigate and punish serious human rights violations committed during the
dictatorship, orders that the State, within a reasonable time and with the greatest speed
possible, adopt the relevant legislative, administrative, financial and budgetary actions
or of any other kind to strengthen the capacity of the Office of the Special Prosecutor,
by providing more personnel and/or budget, as well as any other resource deemed
relevant.
Cf. Case of Almonacid Arellano et al. v. Chile, para. 124; Case of Gomes Lund et al. ("Guerrilha do
Araguaia") v. Brazil, para. 176 and Case of Cabrera García and Montiel Flores v. Mexico. Preliminary Objection,
Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of November 26, 2010. Series C No. 220, para. 225. See, also, Case
of Gelman v. Uruguay. Merits and Reparations, para. 193 and Case of Furlán and family v. Argentina.
Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of August 31, 2012. Series C No. 246, para.
303 and Case of Gelman v. Uruguay. Monitoring compliance of judgment. Order of the Inter-American Court
of March 20, 2013, considering paragraph 66.
281
Case of Gelman v. Uruguay. Monitoring compliance of judgment. Order of the Inter-American Court
of March 20, 2013, considering paragraph 69.
282
66