DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE EDUARDO VIO GROSSI, INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS, CASE OF LIAKAT ALI ALIBUX V. SURINAME, JUDGMENT OF JANUARY 30, 2014 (Preliminary objections, merits, reparations and costs) INTRODUCTION This dissenting opinion is emitted1 with regard to the Judgment indicated above (hereinafter, and interchangeably, “the Judgment”), because the undersigned considers, contrary to the decision made in this case, that it was in order to admit the preliminary objections filed by the Republic of Suriname (hereinafter, and interchangeably, “the State”) concerning the rule of prior exhaustion of domestic remedies; particularly when this was founded on the lodging of the petition before the Commission prior to the delivery of a guilty verdict, and before the exhaustion of remedies relating to the restriction of the right to leave the country2 and, consequently, that a ruling should not have been delivered on the merits or the case. All of this for the following reasons. 3 I. RULE OF PRIOR EXHAUSTION OF DOMESTIC REMEDIES A. Provisions of the Convention directly related to this rule Article 25(1) of the American Convention interchangeably, “the Convention”) indicates: on Human Rights (hereinafter, 1 Art. 66(2) of the Convention: “If the judgment does not represent in whole or in part the unanimous opinion of the judges, any judge shall be entitled to have his dissenting or separate opinion attached to the judgment.” Art. 24(3) of the Court’s Statute: “The decisions, judgments and opinions of the Court shall be delivered in public sessions and the parties shall be given written notification thereof. In addition, the decisions, judgments and opinions shall be published, along with judges’ individual votes and opinions and with such other data or background information as the Court may deem appropriate.” Art. 65(2) of the Court’s Rules of Procedure: “Any Judge who has taken part in the consideration of a case is entitled to append a separate reasoned opinion to the judgment, concurring or dissenting. These opinions shall be submitted within a time limit to be fixed by the Presidency so that the other Judges may take cognizance thereof before notice of the judgment is served. Said opinions shall only refer to the issues covered in the judgment.” 2 Para. 10 of the Judgment. Hereinafter, each time that “para.” is indicated, this will correspond to the respective paragraph of the Judgment. 3 These are the reasons that, as in another case (Dissenting opinion of Judge Eduardo Vio Grossi, Case of Díaz Peña v. Venezuela, Judgment of June 26, 2012 (Preliminary objection, merits, reparations and costs), required the undersigned to consider that since, in his opinion, it was not in order to rule on the merits, he should vote, as in fact he did, negatively on all the declarative and operative paragraphs of the Judgment. This position differs from the one adopted in a non-contentious case by another judge who, although believing that the consultation submitted to the Court was inadmissible and, therefore, that it was inappropriate to examine its merits, considered that, despite this and interpreting a regulatory provision, he should rule of it and proceeded to do so (Dissenting and concurring opinion of Judge Thomas Buergenthal, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Advisory Opinion OC-7/86, of August 29, 1986, Enforceability of the Right to Reply and Correction (Arts. 14.1, 1.1 and 2 American Convention on Human Rights), requested by the Government of Costa Rica.). The undersigned hopes that, in future, the Court’s Rules of Procedure will deal with this situation explicitly, in keeping with one of the two positions described.