HAVING SEEN:
The note of February 18, 1997, submitted on March 4 of that year by the State of Peru (hereinafter "the State" or "Peru") in which it requested reconsideration of the Order of the President of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (hereinafter "the Court" or "the Tribunal") of February 11, 1997, rejecting as time-barred the request for an interpretation of the Judgment on reparations of September 19, 1996 in the Neira Alegría et al. Case.
CONSIDERING:
1. That the remedy of reconsideration is not provided for in the American Convention on Human Rights (hereinafter "the American Convention") and that for this reason the State's request is inadmissible. However, it considers it appropriate to make some observations in that regard.
2. That the aforementioned request for reconsideration is based on the argument that Article 58(1) of the Rules of Procedure in force does not require, as the previous Rules of Procedure did, that [the interpretation] must be presented in the period stated in the Convention and, consequently, inasmuch as the Rules of Procedure are a normative body of rules that give effect to substantial norms, it must be understood that there is currently no time frame within which such a request must be submitted and, in any event, it may be submitted at any time before compliance with the judgment begins.
And, further,
that it is incorrect to consider that a specific time frame established in days may be converted into calendar months, in other words ... if a period of 90 days has been set, it is therefore necessary for it to be calculated in working days ....
3. That while Article 58(1) of the Rules of Procedure does not expressly refer to the deadline for submitting the request for interpretation on the meaning or scope of a judgment of the Court, this is specifically mentioned in Article 67 of the American Convention which establishes the term of ninety days from the date of notification of the judgment for such a request to be made. That period is established by the Convention and may not be altered, let alone eliminated, by regulations, which is the effect of the interpretation proposed by the State when it maintains that "it must be understood that there is currently no time frame within which such a request must be submitted."
4. That, with reference to the State's argument that the term of ninety days established in Article 67 of the Convention must be reckoned in working days, both the President of the Court in his order of February 11, 1997, and the Court in the Castillo Páez and Loayza Tamayo Cases, declared that
Due to the fact that it is an international tribunal, the distinction made by some national procedural systems to determine non-working days may not be utilized; thus, all deadlines indicated in days shall be understood to be calculated in calendar days (Castillo Páez Case, Preliminary Objections, Judgment of January 30, 1996. Series C No. 24, para. 31 and Loayza Tamayo Case, Preliminary Objections, Judgment of January 31, 1996. Series C No. 25, para. 30). Consequently, the expression "day" shall be understood as "continuos day."
5. That in the instant case the request for interpretation of the judgment on reparations was submitted by the State on January 6, 1997, when the term of ninety days granted to the parties for such purposes by the American Convention had already expired.
6. That, in light of the above, the State's request for reconsideration is inadmissible and should therefore be dismissed.
NOW THEREFORE:
THE PRESIDENT OF THE INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS,
in exercise of the powers conferred on him by Article 25 of the Statute and Article 29(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court,
DECIDES
To dismiss, as inadmissible, the request by the State of Peru for reconsideration of the Order of the President of the Court of February 11, 1997.
Done in Spanish and English, the Spanish text being authentic, at the seat of the Court in San Jose, Costa Rica, on this sixteenth day of April, 1997.