In its judgment of 2 July 2024, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) declared the international responsibility of Argentina for violations of Articles 8 and 25 of the American Convention on Human Rights, in connection with disciplinary proceedings initiated against a person deprived of liberty in a penitentiary institution in the Province of Buenos Aires.

The proceedings, conducted by the prison administration, resulted in the revocation of the applicant’s provisional release and his placement under a more restrictive regime of sentence execution. Recalling and expanding its previous case law on persons deprived of liberty, the Court held that the guarantees established in Articles 8(1) and 8(2) of the Convention also apply to administrative disciplinary proceedings conducted against detainees. According to the Court, prison authorities indeed possess discretionary powers and the ability to act promptly to ensure the safety and internal order of penitentiary institutions; however, the exercise of such powers cannot bypass the fair trial guarantees enshrined in the Convention, which constitute an essential core of protection that cannot be restricted by reason of a criminal conviction or the individual’s status as a detainee.

In the present case, the Court found violations of several procedural guarantees: the right to have adequate time and means for the preparation of a defense (Art. 8(2)(c)); the right to be assisted by legal counsel and to communicate freely and confidentially with one’s lawyer (Art. 8(2)(d)); and the right to summon and examine witnesses or experts on one’s behalf (Art. 8(2)(f)). These violations were compounded by the lack of properly reasoned disciplinary decisions and the breach of the presumption of innocence (Arts. 8(1) and 8(2)).

The Court also found a violation of Article 25(1) of the Convention, which guarantees the right to an effective judicial remedy. According to the Court, persons deprived of liberty must have access to effective judicial review of administrative decisions that affect their rights. Judicial authorities are therefore required to exercise active oversight over the legality of measures adopted by prison administrations and over the conditions of sentence execution (para. 147). In this case, the remedies filed by the applicant before the enforcement judge proved ineffective, as they did not lead to any substantive examination of the alleged violations.

The Court placed particular emphasis on the vulnerability of persons deprived of liberty. This condition, it observed, imposes on the State a heightened duty of protection and requires more rigorous judicial scrutiny of disciplinary measures that further restrict detainees’ rights (paras. 83 and 141). A significant portion of the internal debate within the IACtHR concerned the principle of legality enshrined in Article 9 of the Convention. The majority held that the establishment of disciplinary offences through a presidential decree, rather than by formal legislation, did not constitute a violation of the principle of legality, considering that such regulation legitimately falls within the regulatory authority of the prison administration (para. 172). This position was strongly criticised in several separate opinions. Judge Pérez Manrique described the majority’s approach as “a serious setback in the Court’s jurisprudence,” noting that “the principle of legality encompasses not only foreseeability but also the material source of the rule establishing the sanction” (para. 51). Judge Mudrovitsch, for his part, stressed that disciplinary sanctions in the penitentiary context cannot be equated with ordinary administrative sanctions, as they directly affect personal liberty and must therefore be subject to judicial guarantees (paras. 49–50).

The Lynn v. Argentina judgment thus reaffirms the principle that detention status does not entail a suspension of the right to a fair trial. At the same time, it leaves open the debate on the scope of the principle of legality within the Inter-American system, revealing internal divisions within the Court in an area where judicial protection of persons deprived of liberty continues to represent one of the most sensitive indicators of the Convention’s effectiveness.

 

(Comment by Bernardo Mageste Castelar Campos)