5 such action —a boundary that may not be crossed by any authority— lies in the preservation of human dignity. Thus, “all persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person” (Article 5(2) of the Convention). 17. It is true that these provisions relate to deprivation of liberty, but it is also true that the ideas shaping these provisions permeate the punishment system as a whole, notwithstanding other purposes related to such system —such as satisfying the rights and interests of the offended— or to certain forms of punishment specifically. It is impossible to suppose, even remotely, that flogging inflicted on a convict does not undermine “the respect for the inherent dignity of the human person”, or that it tends to achieve the “reform or readaptation” of the convict, in the only sense that may be meant in a democratic society and that are certainly far from being the intellectual or moral devastation of the subject, his absolute submission through violence, the imposition of pure physical pain, the humiliation of the flagellated person. All of this characterized the notion of punishment for society and the state in an increasingly distant past, which we should confine, once and for all, to the attic of history. 18. Censure of the form of punishment used in the instant case —flogging with the “cat o’ nine tails”— has its grounds in Article 5 of the American Convention, in the view of the Court. It entails, beyond any doubt, a brutal attack on a person’s integrity. This precept of the Convention, which refers to acts that violate the jus cogens, as has repeatedly occurred, condemns torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment, types of attack on a person’s integrity and of the violation of the right to humane treatment guaranteed to all persons. In my opinion, the flagellation under analysis has the characteristics of torture, whichever the international text where one may find its definition: be it the United Nations Convention of 1984 or the Inter-American Convention of 1985, beyond the differences between the two of them. 19. The elements described in said documents are present in the facts at issue here, among others: sufferings —which in the instant case were very intense— intentionally caused for the purpose of punishment. It is undoubtedly a form of imposing harsh punishment, deliberately and at the hands of an officer of the State, for the purpose of inflicting corporal punishment. All of which falls perfectly into the international definition of torture. Certainly, when referring to the Inter-American Convention I do not intend to render it applicable to the State, which has not ratified the Convention. I refer to the Convention as a useful instrument to interpret the references contained in Article 5 of the American Convention. The Court has mentioned treaties, the direct application of which is outside its purview, for the purpose of gaining proper understanding of the rules it must apply, such as those contained in Articles 5(1) and (2) of the Convention. 20. In other cases, the Inter-American Court has expressed its view on the existence of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. In doing so, it has taken into account, among other factors —therefore, not exclusively— the extent of the suffering inflicted upon the victim as a result of the attack on the person’s integrity. In this regard, the Court’s opinion is that there is torture when the kind of suffering inflicted is particularly severe, more so than the lesser —though certainly reprehensible always— one in other instances of mistreatment included in Article 5(2) of the American Convention. It is evident that the suffering caused to the victim by means of flagellation with the “cat o’ nine tails” corresponds to the kind that may be classified as torture. 21. It is obvious that this classification of the punishment ordered and inflicted in the instant case cannot be dismissed on the grounds that said punishment is