OPINION OF JUDGE AD HOC ROBERTO DE FIGUEIREDO CALDAS IN RELATION TO THE JUDGMENT OF THE INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN GARIBALDI V. BRAZIL, DELIVERED ON SEPTEMBER 23, DE 2009. I. Introduction 1. Even though I fully agree with the terms of the judgment, prepared collectively and seeking consensus, I submit this opinion with my own reasoning in the hope that it will contribute to a profound reflection by Brazil and other jurisdictional countries; this Court has repeatedly ruled that States were guilty of failing to comply with a reasonable time for deciding litigations without finding a preventive or definitive answer. 2. The violation of the rights to judicial guarantees and judicial protection established in Articles 8(1) and 25(1) of the American Convention on Human Rights has proved to be a constant reality, even if not a permanent one. 3. The Court follows the procedure of acting and delivering judgment only in specific cases and precisely when these are submitted to its jurisdiction. It avoids making a general analysis of the human rights situation in a State sub judice. Its intention is that delivery of the judgment and presentation of the grounds will help the State re-examine its own course of action in order to rectify its path, and also to help other jurisdictional States of the interAmerican human rights system make their own self-assessment of whether they are in compliance with the Convention. 4. It is worth stating that the purpose of the Court’s judgments is to provide a model and an example for the actions of the States. Moreover, the Court expects the States to comply with its decisions and comply with them, irrespective of whether they were handed down against them or against another State. 5. However, as this case deals with the excessive delays in the judicial system and the consequent impunity – chronic evils that always go hand in hand, and for which out Continent does not appear to have an adequate remedy in order to attain the objectives of the Convention – it is worth trying to illuminate the path for those who will follow. 6. The purpose here is not just to punish a violation of the Convention, but to act preventively so that the unjust delay that violates the Convention does not occur. And also not to let the situation reach the stage of violating the Convention because, before this happens, the whole system should function preventively so that the delay never occurs, or only from time to time but not as a general rule. 7. The fundamental goal should be to respect the “reasonable time” (Art. 8(1); but how? This is the question that the nations of the Americas should take up in order to find an answer. 8. In this opinion, I wish to outline a simple model capable, if duly followed by the States, of creating the conditions to resolve judicial delays definitively, easily, promptly and inexpensively. 9. Despite the complexity of the subject matter and the claim made by this statement, since a judicial opinion should also maintain the characteristics of a “simple and prompt” proceeding in order to be understood by the general public with a basic education, I will refrain from presenting a parenthesis with the relevant historical or philosophical explanation.