DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE ad-hoc PIER PAOLO PASCERI SCARAMUZZA In the Case of Ríos et al. v. the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela With the permission of the opinion of the majority of my colleagues, I, Pier Paolo Pasceri S., Judge ad-hoc of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, regret to dissent from the judgment for having a different criterion as to the grounds and the operative paragraphs exposed therein (except for operative paragraphs 1 of the decision) 1 and therefore I am unable to join the decision adopted by the majority of the judges of this Court, whose favorable opinions adopted the judgment on the merits as to the remaining issues that formed part of the decision from which I dissent today. In that sense, I shall now present the grounds in the following way: I do not agree with foregoing judgment since, in my opinion, there are procedural and substantive reasons that must be observed: 1) Procedural reasons: The procedural reasons are related to the objection of non-exhaustion of domestic remedies that was not decided but until the date the judgment was delivered, and was dismissed by the sentencing majority. In my opinion, said objection should have been admitted in light of the claims contained in the application filed by the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights and as a consequence, regarding the petitions contained in the autonomous brief of the alleged victims. In early stages of this case, it was alleged by the Commission (and reiterated befote this Court), the existence of domestic remedies. Therefore, in folio 394 of the file of evidences, volume 2, brief presented by the Venezuelan State Agent for Human Rights, which pointed that: “…Exhausted as there are the first legal resources of the cases pointed previously, the petitioners will have a second resource to which they can resort, also to a series of extraordinary resources as Casación, Constitutional Amparo: Autonomous, Sobrevenido, Joint, Habeas Data or Habeas Corpus, Invalidation, Constitutional Revision, Nullity resource; which they have not exhausted yet…” Even when who undersignes affirms that the legal actions do not result coherent or sufficiente to satisfy the pretensions of this Court as analyzed infra, it should be remembered that the same State Agent pointed in said brief that: “On the other hand, 1 Regarding the decision on the “prejudice in the roles played by some judges of the Court”, the reason why I agree with the solution provided to this problem was mentioned in the decision that, in that moment, became final. To accept that, on this occasion, that there is a possibility of reanalyzing the decision, would imply to modify or eliminate the effect of a former adjudication that resulted from the Decision of October 18, 2007 made by the judges that, at that time, composed the Court (page 1103 of the records on the merits); which, in light of the terms of Article 29 (3) of the Rules of Procedure of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, may not be contested Article 29. Decisions. 1. The judgments and orders for discontinuance of a case shall be rendered exclusively by the Court. 2. All other orders shall be rendered by the Court if it is sitting and by the President if it is not, unless otherwise provided. Decisions of the President that are not purely procedural may be appealed before the Court. 3. Judgments and orders of the Court may not be contested in any way.