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53. One-fourth of the indemnity is awarded to the wife who shall receive that
sum directly. The remaining three-fourths shall be for the daughter. With the
funds from the award to the daughter, a trust fund shall be set up in the Central
Bank of Honduras under the most favorable conditions permitted by Honduran
banking practice. The daughter shall receive monthly payments from this trust
fund, and at the age of twenty-five shall receive the totality of the capital.
18. In its brief, dated September 29, 1989, the Commission justified its request in
the following terms:
This petition for clarification refers to the sum of money that is to be
deposited in trust at the Central Bank of Honduras for the benefit of Emma
Patricia Godínez (Cruz), daughter of the victim, until she reaches the age of
twenty-five, that is, until May 3, 2007.
The jugdment does not contemplate any protective mechanism to
preserve the current purchasing power of the award in the face of inflation or
possible devaluations of the lempira. As the Court is aware, and as we indicate
below, that loss of purchasing power by units of currency has historically been
high throughout Latin American, in some countries sometimes reaching
catastrophic proportions.
Two fundamental reasons have persuaded the Commission to submit
this petition:
First, if the meaning and scope of the judgment are not clarified with
respect to the future value of the compensation placed in trust, irreparable
damage could be caused to the injured parties. As we state below, that damage
is neither hypothetical nor trivial, but predictable and could practically annul the
very value of the Court's decision, as well as its compensatory intent.
Moreover, the Commission believes that such judgments in themselves
hold a special, precedential legal value which goes well beyond the jurisdiction
of the Inter-American Court and its case law, since by their very nature, content
and effect they have deservedly earned universal attention and represent a
milestone in the development of the international humanitarian legal order.
The Court's specific assumption of the supervision of compliance with
its judgment is an eloquent indication of the responsability the Court assigns to
full and exact compliance, and serves to justify the importance of the
interpretation we request.
In addressing the merits of the case, the Court will surely take into
account the fact that the consumer price index (the indicator most relevant to
this case) for the countries of Latin America taken as a whole increased by
721% in the five years from 1983 to 1988, that is, an average of 144% per
annum. Without citing extreme cases of countries experiencing hyperinflation,
Costa Rica, a country geographically close to Honduras, suffered an increase of
263% in its consumer price index over the last ten years. (Source: Report to
the Inter-American Economic and Social Council CIES. OAS, September 1989).
In Honduras, such increases have been much milder. Nevertheless,
even at the relatively low growth of the consumer price index in Honduras, if
the trust in question had been set up 18 years ago (in 1971) in the amount of
L.487,500, that sum would today be the equivalent of L.127,510, or
approximately a quarter of its original value, given the changes experienced in
the consumer price index of Honduras.
19. The Commission asked the Court to admit its request in order that
measures be taken to protect the purchasing power of the amounts (both
principal and interest) involved in the trust to be set up on behalf of EMMA
PATRICIA GODINEZ (CRUZ) by tying that portion of the damages to an index