discriminatory restriction of the right to personal liberty of the presumed victims who were subjected to this precautionary measure. The Commission also pointed out that, while the presumed victims were in detención en firme, there was no periodic review of the need to continue this precautionary measure because it signified an automatic deprivation of liberty without any legal possibility of review of its duration in conformity with the conventionally acceptable purposes. 73. The Commission considered that, as the deprivation of liberty of the presumed victims had been ordered under the measure of detención en firme, contrary to rulings adopted by the Supreme Court of Ecuador concerning when the said measure came into force, the detention was unlawful. Based on the above considerations, it concluded that the State had violated the rights established in Articles 7(1), 7(2), 7(3), 7(5), 8(2) and 24 of the Convention, in relation to Articles 1(1) and 2 of this instrument, to the detriment of the presumed victims, owing to the application of the measure of detención en firme. 74. The Commission also indicated that the detención en firme had been revoked on January 27, 2004, and that the presumed victims were held in pre-trial detention from that date until May 25 that year. Regarding the pre-trial detention, the Commission indicated that article 91 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the National Police did not require verification of the procedural objectives in order to impose this measure; it was sufficient that an offense existed that was punishable by deprivation of liberty and “significant indications or presumptions of responsibility,” and this inverted the exceptional nature of prevention detention and converted it into the rule. Furthermore, the judicial authorities did not make an individualized analysis of the situation of the presumed victims or an assessment of the conventionality of their pre-trial detention because the measure did not require any analysis or justification of whether it complied with procedural objectives pursuant to the obligations under the Convention. Consequently, the Commission concluded that the pre-trial detention of the presumed victims violated Articles 7(1), 7(3) and 8(2), in relation to the obligations established in Articles 1(1) and 2 of this instrument. 75. Lastly, the Commission determined that the remedies filed by the presumed victims to contest their detention were neither appropriate nor effective to obtain due judicial protection. It also noted that the decisions ordering the detention of the presumed victims did not contain a statement of reasons, which created a problem for the presumed victims when presenting their arguments to contest the detention. The Commission concluded that the State had violated Articles 7(6) and 25(1) of the American Convention in relation to the obligations established in Article 1(1) of this instrument, to the detriment of the presumed victims. 76. The representative referred, in general, to the arguments of the Inter-American Commission. It alleged that the detención en firme ordered by General Byron Pinto Muñoz was decreed in the absence of either an indictment by the prosecutor or the fundamental requirements of Ecuador’s criminal law and was applied “retroactively,” because this precautionary measure only came into force on January 13, 2003, while the order to initiate a trial was issued on March 19, 2002. He concluded that the State had violated the rights established in Articles 7(1), 7(2), 7(3), 7(5) and 7(6), 8(1) and 8(2), 9, 24 and 25 of the Convention. 77. The State argued that the real intention of the judge was to order pre-trial detention (which was totally lawful and valid at the time of the facts of the instant case) and not detención en firme. It also argued that, in order to apply pre-trial detention to the presumed victims, several procedures were conducted and, when the evidence had been analyzed, based on sound judicial discretion it was determined that there were indications of responsibility in relation to the existence of a transgression associated with the offense of misappropriation of funds as well as a causal nexus between the offense and those presumably responsible. It added that the detention order had been issued in order to protect the effective conduct of the proceedings because “it merely sought to ensure that the defendants appeared before the court and did not hamper the conduct of the 21