73 gone so far as to deviate somewhat from the set of facts examined in the judgment delivered by the court of first instance; c) when setting out the grounds under which an interested party may file a writ of cassation, the Code of Criminal Procedure makes no distinction between those related to merits and those related to procedure, so that the person availing himself of that remedy is not required to make that distinction either; d) Article 8(2)(h) of the Convention does not require that the remedy to challenge a ruling by a court of first instance be a full review. An examination of procedural errors allows for evidentiary activity. The grounds under which a writ of cassation may be filed guarantee the right to appeal the ruling. Various defects in a judgment are grounds for cassation; e) “it is true that the remedy of cassation does have limits –as, for example, the untouchability of the proven facts - and that it is not a full review; but the Convention does not require a full review.” Furthermore, those limitations are the ones “strictly necessary to keep in place a procedural system based on oral proceedings.” It is more advantageous to the accused (in general for the administration of criminal justice) that a system provide a remedy with certain limitations, as a trade-off to get a criminal justice process that puts the emphasis on oral proceedings; f) the writ of cassation as a means to challenge criminal court rulings is found in legal systems throughout Latin America; and g) the State is convinced that it has taken the necessary measures to guarantee fundamental rights. 139(2) With regard to the right to be heard by an impartial judge or tribunal (Article 8(1) of the Convention), the State asserted that: a) bias on the part of a judge cannot be assumed simply because he has somehow been associated with the object of the proceeding. The very nature of the writ of cassation is such that it prevents violations of the guarantee of impartiality, as the court of cassation serves as a merits tribunal and does not issue any finding as to the facts. The court of cassation only verifies whether the judgment adheres to the law, both with respect to substantive law and procedural law. When the Court of Cassation sends a case back to the court that decided it, it does so because it has discovered procedural defects; it never goes to the arguments presented on the merits or examines the facts. Therefore, when it decided the writ of cassation filed against the acquittal, the Third Chamber of the Costa Rican Supreme Court never issued any finding that could have influenced the ruling of the court of first instance; and b) if Mr. Mauricio Herrera Ulloa believed that the conclusion reached by the Third Chamber of the Costa Rican Supreme Court “violated the principle of an impartial judge,” he should have filed the remedy seeking review provided for in Article 408(g) of the Costa Rican Code of Criminal Procedure. That article lists “violation or absence of due process” as one of the grounds for review of a conviction.