orality in criminal proceedings,” Transitory Provision III of which established a special
review procedure.
34.
The State also argued that, in Amrhein et al. v. Costa Rica, this Court had
determined that Transitory Provision I of Law 8503 was an appropriate remedy to
exhaust domestic remedies, and that the remedy established in Transitory Provision III
of Law 8837 should have been exhausted in the instant case, because that law entered
into force on December 9, 2011, while the Admissibility and Merits Report was adopted
on December 15, 2020.
35.
The Commission indicated that the State had filed this objection during the
admissibility stage and, therefore, reiterated its considerations in the section on the
petition’s admissibility in Admissibility and Merits Report No. 380/20. It stressed that
the alleged victim had filed a remedy of cassation against the first instance judgment
convicting him, and this was declared “unfounded” by the Third Chamber of the
Supreme Court of Justice in a ruling of February 28, 2005. Thus, in the Commission’s
opinion, pursuant to the Costa Rican criminal procedural laws in force at the time of the
facts, the filing of this remedy exhausted the ordinary domestic remedies available to
the alleged victim.
36.
In addition, the Commission emphasized that Admissibility and Merits Report No.
380/20 had noted that the remedies established in Transitory Provision I of Law 8503
and Transitory Provision III of Law 8837 were special remedies and, consequently, it
was not compulsory for the petitioner to exhaust them. Despite this, the alleged victim
filed three review procedures, one of them while Law 8503, Opening of Criminal
Cassation, was in force and another when Law 8837 was in force.
37.
The Commission also argued that the State of Costa Rica had not complied with
the burden of proving that the remedies filed by Scot Cochran were suitable and
effective to resolve his specific situation. Therefore, it considered that the objection of
failure to exhaust domestic remedies filed by the Costa Rican State was inadmissible.
38.
The representatives argued that Law 8503 had been officially published after
the judgment convicting Scot Cochran and did not establish the possibility of individuals
who had received a final judgment making use of the remedy contained in the law. They
also argued that, in the first communication in which it alleged the failure to exhaust
domestic remedies, the State only referred to the procedure derived from Law 8837
and not to the procedure derived from Law 8503; therefore, this preliminary objection
should be rejected because it had not been cited opportunely. Regarding the remedy
established in Transitory Provision III of Law 8837, they indicated that, in a
communication of May 9, 2013, addressed to the Inter-American Commission, the State
had accepted that Scot Cochran had indeed filed this remedy. They also argued that
the Third Chamber’s rulings of December 12, 2007, and February 15, 2013, noted that
a comprehensive review of the judgment had been requested before the appellate
courts in order to access to a wide-ranging remedy that enabled a comprehensive and
integral analysis or examination of all the matters debated and analyzed by the lower
court; however, the remedy was declared inadmissible.
C.2.
Considerations of the Court
39.
According to Article 46(1)(a) of the American Convention, admission by the
Inter-American Commission of a petition is subject to the remedies under domestic law
having been pursued and exhausted in accordance with generally recognized principles
9