120 255. The Court will now consider those injurious effects of the facts of the case that are not financial or patrimonial. Non-pecuniary damage can include both the suffering and affliction caused to the direct victims and their close relations, the detriment to the individuals’ very significant values, as well as non-pecuniary alterations to the conditions of existence of the victim or the victim’s family. This damage can only be compensated by the amount set by the Court reasonably applying judicial discretion.281 Pleadings of the Commission 256. As regards assessment of non-pecuniary damage, the Commission alleged that it is obvious, from the facts of the case, that both Myrna Mack Chang and the members of her immediate family experienced moral suffering as a consequence of her extra-legal execution, especially the daughter of the victim, who at the time of the facts was 16 years old. This suffering has also been worsened by the fact that in the instant case there has been impunity for the accessories of the murder of the victim. The next of kin of the victim, especially her sister Helen Mack Chang, have struggled for over twelve years with all the attendant emotional stress involved in combating impunity, and they have endured threats, intimidations, and harassment by agents of the State. 257. On the other hand, the Commission deems that fair monetary compensation should be given to redress the detriment to the life project of Myrna Mack Chang. Planning and execution of the victim by agents of the State was aimed at the specific objective of depriving her of her life project, as through her social research she inconvenienced the upper echelons of the State. Elimination of the life options of the victim “objectively reduced her freedom and constitutes the loss of a valuable asset,” and they asked the Court to recognize said detriment as part of the compensation ordered. This type of grave detriment to the life path of a victim is not part of the item of pecuniary damage or of moral damage. The Commission shares the opinion that these damages are difficult to quantify, but it believes that resorting to the doctrine of the system and to considerations of fairness, there is a solid basis to estimate a compensation that recognizes the value of a life from a more comprehensive perspective. Pleadings of the representatives of the next of kin of the victim 258. The representatives of the next of kin of the victim pointed out that it is obvious, from the facts stated, that Myrna Mack Chang and her next of kin experienced moral suffering as a consequence of the extra-legal execution, especially her daughter, who was 16 year old at the time of the facts. The Mack Chang family trusts that the Court will set a fair amount to compensate each member of the family for the rights abridged, and they suggest that in reaching this decision the Court take into account that this is an especially grievous case, not only because it is a terrible and deliberate homicide of an outstanding professional, but also because it involves a thirteen-year struggle by the family to attain a system of impartiality and justice in a country whose State has caused suffering and frustration to each of the next of kin. Pleadings of the State 259. The State did not refer to non-pecuniary damage. 281 Cf. Bulacio Case, supra note 9, para. 90; Juan Humberto Sánchez Case, supra note 9, para. 168; and El Caracazo Case. Reparations, supra note 277, para. 94.

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