3 judgment that has the authority of a final judgment (not open to appeal). 10. The judgment is the outcome of the proceeding, i.e. it is the culmination of a series of actions that are fully regulated and subject to an order providing guarantees that defines the requirements for the proceeding and the conditions for the validity of the key acts that make up that proceeding, and thus prove the legitimacy of the proceeding itself as basis for the judgment. The development of the procedural system under the drive of human rights prevails in the notion of due process. In this regard, it exposes the substitution of the criticized expression that “the end justifies the means” with another rule that goes quite in the opposite direction: “the legitimacy of the means used justifies the end thus attained.” 11. Due process is, basically, the basis of the judgment. The case here –to use the analogy, if I may— is the same as with a building: a building with no foundations will collapse and will have to be rebuilt on a solid foundation. It is only in this way and through this method that the definition of rights and the imposition of duties at the end of a dispute brought before an authority with jurisdictional powers is legitimized. There is no due process –and, therefore, no valid determination of rights and duties— without the right to a fair trial provided for in Article 8 of the ACHR. And without due process, there is no real judgment, no res judicata and no room for the principle of ne bis in idem to come into operation either. 12. Currently, the international Law on human rights, as well as international criminal Law, condemn sham trials the purpose or outcome of which is other than justice and which pursue a goal that is contrary to their intended purpose: injustice, concealed between the folds of a “pseudo” proceeding guided by prejudice and aimed at allowing impunity or violations. Hence the fact that the decisions of international courts on human rights do not necessarily conform to the latest domestic-law decision analyzing the violation of a right (and authorizing or allowing the violation to continue, along with the damage inflicted upon the victim), and that is also why international criminal courts refuse to validate decisions made by domestic criminal courts that are unable or unwilling to get justice done. 13. Does this entail the decline of res judicata –a concept frequently brought into question in the realm of criminal law—and the elimination of the ne bis in idem principle, creating a general risk to legal certainty? The answer to this question, which prima facie seems to be in the affirmative, is not necessarily so. And it is not so because the ideas expressed above do not question the validity of res judicata or the prohibition against double jeopardy, provided that both find support in the applicable legal provisions and do not involve fraud or abuse but entail a guarantee for a legitimate interest and the protection of a well-established right. Therefore, there is no attack on the “sanctity” of res judicata or the finality of the first trial –viewed, accordingly, as the only possible trial–, but against the lack of a legitimate ruling –i.e. one legitimized through due process— carrying the effects of a final judgment and suitable to serve as basis for ne bis in idem. CONFLICT OF RIGHTS 14. At some point, the Judgment rendered in the Case of La Cantuta does bring up a potential conflict between fundamental rights that are a part of due process. I am referring to the guarantee for a reasonable term, which does come up fairly often in the context of the proceeding, or in broader terms –as has been argued—of the procedure which affects the rights of private parties and must end with a judicial ruling thereon; and the guarantee of proper defense, which is a key, basic expression of the right of access to justice in its two-fold connotation: the formal one (the possibility to call for a judicial ruling, to prove the facts, present arguments and file appeals) and the material one (securing a fair judgment).