9 36. Thus, the law provides for a single punishment for two distinctively different situations: actual rape and attempted rape. The law contains no rule whatsoever to determine the sanction that may result from, in a specific case, this identity in terms of punishment. All of this follows not only from reading the statutes but also from the explicit assessment made by the judge and the attorneys —for the defense and for the prosecution— regarding the meaning and the scope of the relevant law, assessment which is included in the records of the case. Such gross lack of determination could hardly be deemed natural when considering the legality principle in criminal law and the rights of the accused. 37. Once again we are faced with a situation of lack of reference as was the case with the Mandatory Death Penalty, on which the Court found in the Case of Hilaire, Constantine and Benjamín et al. v. Trinidad and Tobago, judgment of June 21, 2002, to which I appended a Separate Opinion, certain considerations of which are applicable to the case at hand insofar as they refer to general principles of criminal law, ignored by the legislation applied then as well as now. It is obvious that the reasonableness of punishment entails, in itself, no conflict whatsoever between the rights of the accused, on the one hand, and public safety and protection to the victim, on the other. Sergio García Ramírez Judge Pablo Saavedra Alessandri Secretary