121. On January 31, 2005. the Appellate Court of La Serena sanctioned the presumed victim and he appealed this decision before the Supreme Court. 124 The appeal was decided by the Supreme Court of Justice, which confirmed the ruling of the Appellate Court of La Serena, reducing the sanction imposed on Mr. Urrutia Laubreaux. 122. First, the Court observes that there is no evidence in the case file that the justices of the Supreme Court who requested that the academic paper be forwarded to the Appellate Court of La Serena and indicated that it contained “views that this Court finds inadequate and unacceptable” were the same justices that heard the appeal. Nevertheless, this fact was not contested by the State. To the contrary, in its arguments, the State implicitly accepted that this occurred. Therefore, the Court will consider it a fact that at least some of the justices that heard the appeal had previously considered that the academic paper contained views that were “inadequate and unacceptable.” 123. Based on the foregoing, it is not possible to assert that the Supreme Court of Justice approached the facts without having previously issued an opinion about the matter. To the contrary, when it heard the appeal and had to rule on the disciplinary responsibility of Mr. Urrutia Laubreaux, it had already considered that the paper in question contained views that were “inadequate and unacceptable” and had forwarded it to the Appellate Court of La Serena “for all relevant purposes.” Although the Supreme Court had not expressly asked the Appellate Court to open a disciplinary procedure against the author of the academic paper, it had forwarded it to the organ with jurisdiction to exercise disciplinary authority with regard to Judge Urrutia Laubreaux,125 and this resulted in the opening of the disciplinary procedure against him. Furthermore, the case file does not include any other possible reasons to explain why the Supreme Court forwarded the academic paper to the Appellate Court. The Court considers that these actions were sufficiently significant to compromise the impartiality of the Supreme Court of Justice when deciding the appeal filed by the presumed victim. 124. Based on the foregoing, this Court considers that the justices of the Supreme Court who heard the appeal did not meet the objective standards of impartiality to decide it. Therefore, the State violated the guarantee of impartiality recognized in Article 8(1) of the Convention, in relation to Article 1(1) of this instrument, to the detriment of Mr. Urrutia Laubreaux. 125. Regarding the alleged violation of Article 2, in relation to Article 8(1) of the Convention, the Court notes that it has not been proved that the violations of the judicial guarantees that occurred in this case were related to the lack of appropriate laws. In addition, the Court considers that it is unnecessary to rule on the alleged violation of judicial protection. Cf. Appellate Court of La Serena. Decision of March 31, 2005 (evidence file, folios 32 to 36), and Appeal filed by Daniel David Urrutia Laubreaux with the Supreme Court of Justice of Chile on April 5, 2005 (evidence file, folios 38 and 39). 124 Articles 535 and 540 of the Organic Code of the Courts establish the following: “Article 535. Appellate Courts are responsible for maintaining judicial discipline throughout the territory of their corresponding jurisdiction, immediately supervising the judicial conduct of their members and that of the junior judges, and ensuring compliance with all the duties required of them by law. […] Article 540. The Supreme Court, pursuant to Article 86 of the Constitution of the State, is responsible for exercising corrective, disciplinary and economic jurisdiction over all the courts of the Nation. Based on this authority, whenever it notes that a judge or judicial official has committed an offense that has not received the appropriate correction or punishment required by law, the Supreme Court may reconvene the court or authority that has left the offense unpunished so that it may apply the due punishment or correction. It may also reprimand the Appellate Courts or censure their conduct if any of these courts should exercise the discretional authority conferred on them by law abusively, or neglect any of their duties; without prejudice to opening the corresponding proceedings against the offending court or judges if the nature of the case should require this.” Organic Code of the Courts. Law 7421 published on July 9, 1943, articles 535 and 540 (evidence file, folios 3983 and 3984). 125 32