Appendix IV: New Developments in the Cases Velasquez Rodriguez and Godinez Cruz
| DOI | 10.1177/016934419000800415 |
| Published date | 01 December 1990 |
| Date | 01 December 1990 |
| Subject Matter | Part C: Appendices |
NQllR
4
/1990
APPENDIX IV
NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN
THE
CASES VELASQUEZ RODRIGUEZ
AND
GODINEZ
CRUZ
Velasquez Rodriguez and Godinez Cruz
are
two of the first three cases
decided by the Inter-American
Court
of
Human
Rights. Velasquez and
Godinezdisappeared in Honduras in 1981 and the Courtdecided that these
disappearances were the responsibility of the State, which
had
violated
Articles 4, 5
and
7 of the American Convention on Human Rights (See 6
NQHR
3
and
7
NQHR
3). As can be remembered, on 21 July 1989, the
Court settled the amount and form of the compensation that the govern-
ment of .Honduras.had been required to pay to the relatives
of
Mr. Angel
Manfredo Velasquez Rodriguez
and
Mr. Saul Godinez Cruz as a conse-
quence of violations of the American Convention on
Human
Rights of
Honduras.
For
the Velasquez case, the Court fixed the compensation in the
sum
of
750.000 lempiras for the benefit of the widow and Mr. Velasquez'
three children.
For
the Godinez case, the sum was 650.000 lempiras to be
paid to Mr. Godinez' wife and his only child.
The
Court -ordered the
government to pay these sums
either
within 90 days of the notification of
the decisions, or in six monthly installments starting 90 days after the
notification of the decisions.
If
the governmentchose the second possibility,
the sum would be incremented by interests at the normal
rate
of
bank
interests in Honduras. With the sums to be paid to the children of the
victims, a trust would be set up in the
central
Bank of
Honduras
"under
the most favorable conditions permitted by Honduran banking practice"
and the children would receive monthly payments from the trust fund until
the age of 25 when they would receive the totality of the capital. In the
judgments, the
Court
stated that it would supervise the implementation
of
the compensatory damages at all
of
its stages.
Invoking Article 67 of the American Convention, which allows the
parties to a case to request an interpretation of a Court's judgments when
there is disagreement as to its meaning and scope, the Inter-American
Commission on
Human
Rights requested an interpretationof the decisions
of the Court concerning the fixing
of
the compensation for the relatives of
Mss. Velasquez and Godinez.
The
Commission requested the Court to
interpret these decisions in the sense that the sums to be deposited to
create the trust fund for the orphans of the victims should be pegged to
468
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