10
35.
The above mentioned participants of the public hearing before this Court, as well as
the aforementioned amicus curiae, expressed a common concern, and also a common
purpose, even though through arguments of different nuances. I understand that the InterAmerican Court has paid attention to this common concern and has contributed to this also
common purpose, when determining, in a very clear way, that the so called self-amnesty
“laws” “were unable to generate effects, do not keep them at present, nor can they be
generated in the future.”12 Said “laws” of self-amnesty are not truly laws, but a legal
aberration, an affront to the recta ratio.
III.
The Inadmissible Aggression against the Universitas.
36.
There is another aspect in this case of La Cantuta that deeply moves me, at the time
I complete 12 years as Incumbent Judge of this Court and 30 years as university
Professor.13 I find myself obliged to express my unbreakable faith in the Universitas, and my
conviction that, in the cas d'espèce, apart from the State crime perpetrated in the victims
detriment (a Professor and 9 university students) and their next of kin, an inadmissible
aggression was committed against an institution of universality character: the University, in this case in particular, the University of La Cantuta.
37.
On July 6, 1953, the University of La Cantuta opened its doors; its name derives
from the fact that “it was built in an ancient town that had the name of the Incas heraldic
flower, which is cultivated along the Mantaro valley, with red and yellow tints.”14 The above
mentioned University prepared future teachers for practicing in schools (high school level)
of the country, that is, it had a social and teaching function (although it was already taken
by military forces since May 21, 1991).15
38.
But apart from the teaching and social function that it represents in each country,
the University would hardly be realized without the supranational function - beyond the
State - that belongs to it by an intrinsic demand.16 At present, broad ways of
communication and understanding are available for the new generations, more than in other
times, for exchanging ideas, the refinement of the concentration capacity, discernment and
criticism, intergenerational dialogue (between professors and students), to look for the
construction of a fairer and better world for future generations. We are summoned to
rethink the whole conceptual universe within which we are trained, in our vision of both the
12
Para. 189, and operative paragraph No. 7 (emphasis added).
13
Permanently settled in Brasilia, but as invited Professor in many of the main Universities in every
continent.
14
Efraín Rúa, El Crimen de La Cantuta - La Desaparición y Muerte de un Profesor y Nueve Estudiantes que
Estremeció al País, 4th. ed., Lima, Universidad La Cantuta, 2005, p. 41.
15
Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos (APRODEH), De la Tierra Brotó la Verdad - Crimen e Impunidad en el
Caso La Cantuta, Lima, APRODEH, 1994, p. 9.
16
As it is known, the Universities appeared in the European continent during the Low Middle Age, cultivating
essentially scholastic reasoning and debating methods. By the end of the 14th Century, the concept of University
approached this of today; during Renaissance, the term Universitas acquires the present meaning . The feeling of
universality was encouraged by the use of Latin, by the culture of universal knowledge (to be spread everywhere),
and by the gradual search of authors of every culture. As time went by (until the 18th Century), Universities looked
for their legal autonomy.
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