IACHR
Press Release
The IACHR Congratulates the State of Mexico for Attaining Full Compliance with the Friendly Settlement Concerning the Case of Irineo Martínez Torres and Candelario Martínez Damián
March 29, 2019
IACHR Press and Communication Office
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Washington, D.C. – The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has decided to declare full compliance with Friendly Settlement Report 65/14, concerning Case 12,769—Irineo Martínez Torres and Candelario Martínez Damián, Mexico—and will stop monitoring it.
The case concerns the State’s international responsibility for violations of the rights to personal integrity, personal liberty, due process and judicial protection committed against Irineo Martinez Torres and Candelario Martínez Damián when they were arrested and subjected to criminal proceedings. On May 11, 2011, the parties signed a friendly settlement that was approved by the IACHR on July 25, 2014.
The IACHR highlighted the case’s individual outcomes and observed that the State had restored the workshops belonging to the families of the two victims and paid the required financial compensation. The Commission further highlighted the case’s structural outcomes and observed that the State had provided information about the requirements to access Mexico’s healthcare system; set up a healthcare desk to advise members of the community who have questions, to ensure their right to health and register them; conducted a work and labor diagnosis in the community; launched family-centered production projects to promote the community’s development, as social rehabilitation measures; designed an information campaign involving several media, to enable the Purepecha community to know its rights in case of arrest; and formally established a degree to train interpreters in the indigenous languages of the state of Michoacán, in the context of the dispensation and the administration of justice.
The Inter-American Commission closely followed the implementation of the friendly settlement that was agreed in this case. The IACHR highly commended both parties for their efforts in negotiations and, later, during the monitoring stage of the friendly settlement. Based on information provided by the parties during the monitoring process, the IACHR declared that full compliance with this friendly settlement had been attained, and consequently ended its supervision of compliance.
The IACHR commends the Mexican State on its efforts to solve cases that are taken before the friendly settlement mechanism and congratulates it for the full implementation of this friendly settlement. The Commission further congratulates the petitioning party for all its efforts to advance toward full compliance with this friendly settlement.
A principal, autonomous body of the Organization of American States (OAS), the IACHR derives its mandate from the OAS Charter and the American Convention on Human Rights. The Inter-American Commission has a mandate to promote respect for and to defend human rights in the region and acts as a consultative body to the OAS in this area. The Commission is composed of seven independent members who are elected in an individual capacity by the OAS General Assembly and who do not represent their countries of origin or residence.
No. 083/19