49 punishment was imposed,169 who providie the detainee with personal hygiene products, money in cash, and medicine, as well as requested the intervention of physicians to examine him, Mr. Vélez Loor could not exercise his right to defense with consular assistance, due to the fact that the sanctioning administrative procedure did not allow to implement the consular assistance as part of due process of law. 160. Based on the foregoing, the Court concludes that, in the instant case, the absence of information of Mr. Vélez Loor regarding his right to communicate with the consulate of his country and the lack of effective access to consular assistance as a component of the right to defense and due process, violated Articles 7(4), 8(1), and 8(2)(d) of the American Convention, in relation to Article 1(1) therein, to the detriment of Mr. Vélez Loor. f) Deprivation of liberty by application of Article 67 of Decree Law 16 of 1960 161. The Commission as well as the representatives alleged the violation of Article 7(3) of the Convention by virtue of the penalty of two years imposed on Mr. Vélez Loor by Order 7306, which was of a criminal nature. On the one hand, the Commission sustained that “[e]ven though, this second order indicated the legal basis for the penalty and that Mr. Vélez Loor was a recidivist, the penalty per se was the result of a proceeding that openly disregarded all the guarantees of due process.” On the other hand, the representatives alleged that it is not sufficient that every reason for deprivation or restriction of the right to liberty is established by law, but that it is necessary for such law and its application to respect the requirements according to which the measure must have a compatible purpose, be suitable, necessary, and proportional, so that the detention is not considered arbitrary. According to the representatives, the penalty imposed on Mr. Vélez Loor “was not only unnecessary, but it seriously and disproportionately affected his right to personal liberty,” and Order 7306, by means of which he was sentenced to imprisonment, does not contain any grounds that allow evaluating whether the restriction complies with the conditions aforementioned. 162. Moreover, the representatives emphasized what they called “the phenomenon of the criminalization of migrant persons,” of which the law in force in Panama at the time of the events is a clear illustration of this, given that it stipulated the imposition of the penalty of imprisonment on recidivists who illegally entered the country. Furthermore, they highlighted that this tendency towards criminalization of migrants is reinforced by “practices or discourse that encourage the perception that migrants [were] dangerous, that they caus[ed] an increase of insecurity, that they p[ut] pressure on the public services and that they, therefore, bec[ome] a burden to society.” Finally, the representatives alleged that this norm was “discriminatory and a stigma, [given] that it compared the regular migrant with a criminal; however, it did not contemplate any guarantee of due process.” 163. In this chapter, the Court shall rule on the power of States to impose a punitive penalty for the non-compliance with immigration laws, like the sanction of two years contemplated in Article 67 of Decree Law 16 of 1960170 that was applied in the instant case. To that end, it is necessary to analyze whether such domestic 169 170 Cf. Note N° 4-2-105/2009, supra note 79, folio 2435 and 2436. Article 67 stated that “[a]ny alien who evades the order for deportation issued against him, by staying in the country in a clandestine manner or flouts the penalty by returning to the country, shall be sentenced to two (2) years of agricultural work in the Penal Colony of Coiba and will be obliged to leave the country at the end of that period; such an alien may be released if he presents, at the discretion of the Ministry of Interior and Justice, a ticket to abandon the country.” Decree Law No. 16 of June 30, 1960, supra note 80, folio 1153.