the State to "guess" the rights that the Court will use to analyze the facts of the case, since asking
it to pronounce on every fact that could be relevant to a violation of an ESCR is a violation of the
right to defense and also borders on the absurd. As I mentioned in my opinion in Lagos del Campo,
the way in which the ESCR case law has developed -including the use of the principle of iura novit
curia- has caused opacity in the debate on its justiciability because it has not allowed for a
transparent discussion on an issue that would require the participation of States, the Commission
and representatives through formal procedures. It has also weakened the case law itself, insofar as
this principle has been used in an unobjective manner, to the extent that it seems more like an act
of pure judicial activism than the action of a human rights court subject to the rule of law.
III. Non-application of the principle iura novit curia in the present case
6.
It is precisely because of the recent desire for judicial activism demonstrated by the majority
of the Court in the area of ESCR that it is so striking that in the instant case the Court did not analyze
the violations that occurred to the detriment of the victims from the perspective of the right to health
and the right to food, and instead did so from the perspective of the right to humane treatment. In
this case, the Court reiterated its standards on the special position of guarantor of the State with
respect to any person in its custody, which implies the duty of the State to safeguard the health and
well-being of the inmates by providing them with the medical assistance they require and to ensure
that the manner and method of deprivation of liberty does not exceed the level of suffering inherent
to detention (para. 71). From this perspective, it analyzed the facts of the case related to the prison
conditions of Mr. Rodríguez Revolorio, Mr. López Calo and Mr. Archila Pérez, as well as the deficiencies
in terms of medical care, food and the visiting regime (paras. 71 to 92). In the instant case, the
Court concluded that these conditions, as a whole, resulted in cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment in violation of Articles 5(1) and 5(2) of the Convention (para. 92).
7.
Let my surprise with the majority's decision not be misunderstood. If it exists, it is because I
fully agree with the result reached by the Court (unanimously), and it is for this reason that I voted
in favor of the operative paragraphs of the Judgment (Operative Paragraph 3). As I have argued in
my concurring and dissenting opinions on recent ESCR judgments, the analysis of violations of ESCRrelated issues by connection generates the same practical result as the "autonomous" analysis
proposed by the majority in recent judgments. Of course, the advantage of the connexity analysis is
that it protects rights without generating the institutional wear and tear and the argumentative and
evidentiary weakness that the contrary analysis generates. And this case proves the point: the
Judgment addresses the issues related to the lack of adequate medical care and the lack of food for
the victims under the spectrum of the duty to guarantee the right to humane treatment of persons
deprived of liberty. The decision is reasonable and in accordance with the law, respects the case law
developed by the Court in recent decades, and reflects a consensus vote among all the judges. All of
this strengthens the Court's position and guarantees the rights involved in an adequate manner.
8.
Nothing guarantees that in the future the Court will walk a prudent path in the area of ESCR.
In fact, the opposite seems to be true, so that Rodríguez Revolorio may be an exception in what
appears to be an expansive tendency that seems to have no other limit than the imagination and the
will to declare the violation of more social rights (as many as possible), even when this implies
ignoring basic rules and principles of procedural law, and also serves no practical purpose. To the
same extent, perhaps the weak use of the principle of iura novit curia for the analysis of cases that
have little to do with ESCR will also continue, as happened in Lagos del Campo, Petroperu and San
Miguel Sosa (to mention three). However, as much in law, this is only a possibility. It could also
happen that the Court makes a more circunscribed and reasoned use of this principle, in such a way
that it is restricted by parameters of reasonableness, relevance to the concrete case and closeness
to it. This is the practice of other international tribunals, and has been the practice of the Court in
the past. Moving in this direction seems to be the most appropriate path for the Court, especially in
this new jurisprudential trend in the area of ESCR, which continues to generate so many doubts.
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