17. However, it should be noted that the rule that authorized the sanction imposed on the victim in this case goes much further, because it even prohibits the judge from publicly defending his own functional conduct without authorization from the leadership. 18. We are aware that, today, throughout the region, the media has a tendency towards a dangerous oligopolistic hegemony and that the so-called networks also exercise a strong influence on public opinion, all of which facilitates what is known as fake news, a phenomenon that has been specifically studied by sociologists and communication specialists. It is also a well-known fact that this fake news often affects judges who are thereby stigmatized by what some experts call media lynching. 19. According to the rule in question, which prohibits the judge from publicly defending his function-related conduct, it would be sufficient that the leadership of the corporation disliked the case law established by a judge, or even the person him or herself for particular reasons, to leave him defenseless and completely powerless in the face of any falsehood published or disseminated. 20. In short, the horizontal or corporate structure of Judiciaries is not a matter that remains at the complete discretion of the States, without engaging international human rights law. Although States have an undeniable and broad range of options among the different models of judicial structures, it is incumbent on international human rights law to ensure to everyone the basic right established in Article 8(1) of the American Convention, which is not possible when the judge who should act in accordance with the Convention forms part of a hierarchized, vertical corporate structure; in other words, when the State does not accord the judge the rights inherent in his condition as an individual with moral autonomy and of a citizen with the freedom to express criticism. 21. Obiter dicta, it is necessary to recall the disastrous results of corporate and verticalized judiciaries in the face of the irruption of the totalitarian regimes in the interwar years in Germany, Italy and France. Moreover, it should also be added that, even though this case relates to a rule applicable by the collegiate organs of the Judiciary itself, the prohibitions that it contains could not be tolerated even if the sanctions were imposed by an organ external to the Judiciary or belonging to the Judiciary but distinct from the collegiate instances of judges, such as councils of the judicature or similar, or even that a political body should sanction or dismiss a judge for the conducts that the said rule was intended to prohibit, because this would be equally harmful for his subjective independence and also, in this situation, dangerous for external independence. 22. I add these considerations in concurrence with those expressed unanimously in this judgment. 23. This is my opinion. Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni Judge Pablo Saavedra Alessandri Secretary 3