6 Court’s case law. 24. I understand that the creation of the conditions for a decent life, which signifies the development of an individual’s potential and the search for his own destiny, should take place in accordance with that individual’s own decisions, his respective opinions, his shared culture. This is the basis for the close connection between the right to a decent life, on the one hand, and the right to the “relationship between man and the land” – ownership, property, in the broadest sense – which the judgment has taken into account, on the other. This explains why there was a violation of the right to life embodied in Article 4(1) of the Convention – with the scope we have described – to the detriment of the members of the Yakye Axa community. The lack of evidence about the causes of the death of 16 members of the community, which explains the majority vote in that judgment, does not exclude or reduce the terms of the declaration formulated in the third operative paragraph: there was a violation of the right to life and this violation affected all the members of the community. E) Containment. Case of YATAMA 25. The Case of YATAMA has examined another group of violations that harm members of communities. This case does not deal with the more dramatic aspects seen in the previous cases, such as: physical suppression, deprivation of land, violation of the right to life. The circumstances in which the facts of this case occurred suggest that, following a long struggle which has produced appreciable progress, YATAMA, which unites members of many communities, has opened up its own space in political and social life, which gives it a relevant and accepted position – not without severe reticence, with diverse juridical implications – and safeguards it from aggressions such as those observed in the other cases. This case deals with the acts or omissions by which the progress of the communities, as such, is “contained.” Thus, we find ourselves faced with a different situation which, perhaps, corresponds to the final stage in the series of refusals to accept equality and non-discrimination in favor of every individual, including, of course, the members of these minority groups. 26. In this case the acts and omissions that harm the right recognized in the Convention are concentrated in political activities and, in this regard, affect the possibility of the members of indigenous communities from intervening on an equal footing with their fellow citizens, members of other social sectors, and participating effectively in the decisions that affect them, together with the latter. One of the ways in which this intervention and participation occurs is through the exercise of political rights. 27. Here, I refer, as I have already said, to material equality and effective nondiscrimination, not to a mere formal equality that leaves intact – or scarcely hides – marginalization and maintains discrimination. This type of equality tends to be obtained through factors or elements of compensation, equalization, development or protection that the State provides to the members of the communities, by means of a juridical regime that recognizes the facts relating to a certain cultural background and is established on the basis of a genuine recognition of real limitations, discriminations or restrictions and contributes to overcoming, suppressing or compensating them with appropriate instruments; not merely with general declarations on an inexistent and impracticable equality. Equality is not a starting