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other applicable international treaties, the unwritten norms, and the imperative stipulations of
international law.”58
82.
It is up to the State to order the measures necessary to ensure that its criminal
procedural system conforms to its international obligations in the area of human rights,
especially the minimum guarantees of due process as set forth in Article 8 of the American
Convention. Thus, for example, in the case of criminal procedural systems like Argentina’s,
which operates mainly by the principles of the orality and immediacy of the proceedings, States
are required to ensure that those principles do not involve exclusions or restrictions of the scope
of the review that the court authorities have the authority to perform. Furthermore, a court’s
review of a ruling ought not to pervert the principles of orality and immediacy.
83.
On another point, with respect to the accessibility of the remedy, the
Commission considers that in principle the regulation of some minimum requirements for the
origin of the appeal is not incompatible with the right expressed in Article 8.2.h of the
Convention. Some of these requirements are, for example, the presentation of the appeal itself—
given that Article 8.2.h does not stipulate automatic review—or the regulation of a reasonable
period within which it must be filed. However, in some circumstances rejection of appeals based
on failure to comply with formal requirements established by statute or defined in the judicial
practice of a given region may be a violation of the right to appeal a judgment.
84.
Firstly, the Commission notes that in the present case, given the applicable legal
framework, the only remedy was the extraordinary appeal (recurso extraordinario) of the
conviction issued by the Chamber of Appeals. That remedy does not grant a timely, accessible,
and effective review in accordance with the standards explained in the previous paragraphs. The
IACHR therefore notes that the reasons for the appeal, i.e., patent unconstitutionality and
arbitrariness, offer limited or restricted prospects for review from the start.
85.
Hence it is understandable that the victim’s defense counsel, in an effort to have
the appeal admitted and decided, did not request review of questions of fact or evidence but
presented arguments based on the unconstitutionality of the process or its manifest
arbitrariness. It is not up to the Commission to indicate which questions could have been raised,
but given the legal framework the Commission considers that the analysis should not be limited
to whether the judicial authorities that considered the special appeal responded to the arguments
presented by the appeal, but that they should take into account that the victims started the
appeal stage with an a priori limitation with respect to the allegations they could present. This is
so because there was no remedy other than the extraordinary appeal at the time of the facts, so
there was a real restriction as to the subject and accessibility of the remedy.
86.
Based on the foregoing, the IACHR points out that a finding of whether the right
to appeal the judgment has been violated requires a case-by-case analysis to evaluate the
specific circumstances of the case presented to the Commission, in light of the general criteria
outlined in the preceding paragraphs. Therefore, and given that Mr. Mohamed had no other
remedy, the IACHR will proceed to analyze whether the extraordinary appeal filed satisfied the
requirements of Article 8.2.h of the Convention.
87.
The extraordinary appeal to Argentina’s Supreme Court is governed by the
federal Civil and Commercial Procedure Code and by Law 48 of 1863. It can be filed against
final judgments by superior provincial courts under the conditions specified in Article 14 of Law
48, i.e.,
58 I/A Court H. R., Case of Fermín Ramírez v. Guatemala. Judgment of June 20, 2005. Series C No. 126,
para. 66.