non-repetition, “the inclusion of a rule in the Comprehensive Organic Criminal Code that
establishes the automatic payment of compensation to detainees for income lost due to
pretrial detention if they are found not guilty.” 150
175. The State commented on some of these requests. It held that the requested
guarantees of non-repetition are not appropriate because the national legal order already
permits adequate protection of the rights enshrined in the American Convention: It noted that
any individual who “is dissatisfied with the administration of justice in Ecuador c[an ...] file a
liability action against the State or against justice officials for a failure to properly administer
justice.” In addition, the State argued that the requested acknowledgment of responsibility
and public apologies were not appropriate because the national authorities have fulfilled their
obligation to protect and ensure the effective enjoyment of the rights established in the
American Convention.
176. Regarding the guarantees of non-repetition requested by the Commission, the Court
notes, first, as it has on one occasion in the past, 151 that the procedural rules for pretrial
detention applied in this case are no longer in force, nor are those concerning military
courts. 152 Regarding the representatives’ request for a mechanism for “automatic payment”
to individuals subjected to pretrial detention and later found not guilty, the Court holds that
the representatives have not provided enough information with respect to domestic
mechanisms for seeking reparations to allow for the assessment of the relevance of this
measure.
177. The Court considers the measures already ordered in this judgment to be sufficient,
and it holds that it is therefore not appropriate to order the rest of the measures requested
by the representatives (supra para. 174).
E. Compensation
178. The Commission asked that the State be ordered “[t]o comprehensively remedy the
human rights violations” committed, in terms of both “pecuniary and non-pecuniary aspects,”
including “measures of financial compensation.”
179. The representatives asked that Ecuador be ordered to: 1. Pay USD 145,724.62 (one
hundred forty-five thousand seven hundred twenty-four dollars and sixty-two cents) as
compensation for the pecuniary damage suffered by Mr. Cortez, bearing in mind the following:
(a) the loss of his job at the Ícaro company, which caused damages of USD 143,862.52 (one
150
The representatives described standards that, in their view, the requested measure should follow: (a) if the
person loses their job during the pretrial detention and is found innocent, the State should continue paying the salary
lost until they find a new job; (b) if the new job pays less than the previous one, the State should pay the difference
until the person secures an income equivalent to what was lost; and (c) if the person “was unemployed when the
pretrial detention was ordered, they should be paid a minimum living wage.”
151
In the case of Carranza Alarcón v. Ecuador, the Court denied a similar request for guarantees of nonrepetition, noting that “Article 177 of the Code of Criminal Procedure [...] is not in effect.” (Case of Carranza Alarcón
v. Ecuador, supra, para. 104). The expert witness Álvaro Francisco Román Márquez, in his written statement
(evidence file, folios 1104–1139), also noted that the 1983 Code of Criminal Procedure was no longer in force, having
been replaced by another in June of 2001, and that the Military Criminal Procedure Code had not been in force since
2009.
152
Furthermore, with respect to the finding in this judgment of the incompatibility of the domestic legal order
with the Convention as regards habeas corpus (supra para. 142), it is noted that in these proceedings, a measure of
reparation was not requested for this. Nevertheless, this Court recalls that in deciding the case of Chaparro Álvarez
and Lapo Íñiguez, it ordered the State to make the relevant modifications to its domestic laws (cf. Case of Chaparro
Álvarez and Lapo Íñiguez v. Ecuador. Preliminary objections, merits, reparations, and costs, supra, para. 268 and
operative paragraph 11), and that this has been done in regard to habeas corpus (Case of Chaparro Álvarez and
Lapo Íñiguez v. Ecuador. Monitoring Compliance with Judgment, supra, considering paragraphs 30 and 31).
38