Caracas, March 4 - 6, 1998
Ibero-American Supreme Justice Courts and Tribunals have decided to meet with the fundamental objective of designing policies and judgments oriented to developing, insofar as it concerns us, the principles contained in the Margarita Declaration dated in November 1997, in which the Ibero-American Chiefs of State and of Government pointed out aspects relative to the administration of justice in these countries.
Stimulated by the responsibility resting upon our institutions of preserving the juridical order, as the best instrument to strengthen peace among our peoples, we have deemed this encounter unpostponable.
Identified by a common origin and a social crisis of similar dimensions which compels us to jointly address the problems it has unchained, we acknowledge that our Judicial Powers must adapt to the reality that our society demands in order to efficiently assume our role as guarantors of the rule of law and as a factor of political and institutional stability in our democratic systems.
The crisis of our societies is the crisis of our institutions, and it is our duty, as its representatives, to solve it, having our attributions and competencies as our limits. Therefore, we understand that the historical responsibility of our countries' Judicial Powers must be undertaken by the Supreme Justice Tribunals and Courts as pinnacles of these powers, thus leading the initiatives which will allow the restoration of the juridical order to provide the security essential for the social well being and the economical development of our countries.
Our judgments are directed to watching over the independence and autonomy of the Judicial Power, with the purpose of ensuring the protection and respect for Human Rights, to bolster our countries' sustainable development, and to protect the environmental legacy of future generations. Special importance has been awarded to the enforcement and revision of the sanctioning system against offenses such as corruption and drug traffic, whose solution must be addressed from an interjurisdictional perspective.
Likewise, we have held this meeting with the awareness that we must seek the effectiveness of the Justice Administration System, for which the adequate training of its officials is essential, and the development of alternate means to resolve the controversies of this new society that will ensure the timely access to Justice by the common citizen.
The achievement of this summit realizes the need to address the treatment of the solutions that the Ibero-American society demands through coordinated actions sustained on reciprocal exchange of experience and information, as well as on the adoption of joint actions.
Finally, we reiterate our firm conviction that the best performance of the Judicial Power has, as an irreplaceable premise, the independence of its institutions regarding other branches of the Public Power and the autonomy of its judges.
Concerning the theme about which we have reflected, the following considerations have been made:
Autonomy and Independence of the Judicial Power and Cooperation among Public Powers
The Ibero-American Supreme Courts and Tribunals attending this Summit, aware that autonomy and independence of the Judicial Power are essential premises for their effective functioning, formulate the following policies:
1. In order to ensure the judicial independence, it is necessary to apply and create norms which ensure the self-government of the judicial power and regulate access to the administration of justice, respect to the judge's stability, and to the judicial career, as well as permanent training of its administrative and jurisdictional personnel.
2. A budget adjusted to the needs of administering justice is a fundamental element for the practice of an actual autonomy. Budgetary formulation and execution must be performed respecting the independence of the Judicial Power through each country's legal mechanisms.
3. Tribunals must perform an active role in the formulation and execution of policies directed towards effectively accomplishing the governance of the justice administration.
4. The effective performance of the judicial disciplinary instances must be guaranteed, as well as that of the disciplinary courts which control the career of attorney, to strengthen the independence of judges.
5. To strengthen the professional vocation of the Judge as guarantor of the independence of the Judicial Power.
6. Courts must exercise an active role in the initiative and discussion of legislative projects. Likewise, permanent and effective mechanisms that facilitate cooperation among public powers must be established.
7. To promote awareness among citizens about the imperative need for the existence of an independent and capable Judicial Power.
In order to execute the previously enunciated policies, the Presidents of Supreme Courts and Tribunals attending this event commit themselves to carry out the following actions:
1. To determine the effectiveness of the expenditure regarding justice administration, with the purpose of establishing the accurate composition of an autonomous judicial budget.
2. To quantify the number of procedures pending for resolution in the competent instances of the judicature's disciplinary control and the litigating attorneys, and to promote their timely decision.
3. To conduct a study in the participating countries regarding the application of judge selection mechanisms and also mechanisms of respect for the law career.
4. To conduct a compared study on the cooperation schemes among the Public Powers.
Force, Promotion, Protection and Respect of Human Rights
The Ibero-American Supreme Courts and Tribunals attending this Summit acknowledge the need of firmly establishing an institutional culture that ensures equality, dignity, non- discrimination and solidarity for all citizens, and agree to formulate the following policies: oriented to the promotion of the judicial protection of Human Rights:
1. It is fundamental that judicial instances guarantee the protection of civil, cultural, economic, political and social Human Rights, including the right to development. Therefore, judges must especially address causes in which rights are controverted.
2. It is essential to promote the full exercise of Human Rights as a mechanism for strengthening the democratic systems.
3. It is essential to ensure the disclosure of international treaties and other instruments of Human Rights protection, as well as the formation of judicial officials in the effective protection of those rights.
4. It is acknowledged that indigenous villages and other minority groups are the recipients of Human Rights.
With the purpose of carrying out the previously enunciated policies, the Presidents of Supreme Courts and Tribunals attending this event commit themselves to carry out the following actions:
1. To exchange jurisprudence among the various participating countries and with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in order to strengthen the integral formation of the judge in this matter.
2. To develop a common disclosure policy of the instruments of Human Rights protection.
3. To open cooperation mechanisms between the Judicial Power and the civil organizations.
4. To urge the judges to enforce the accepted Human Rights protection criteria, incorporating the individual features of the rights of each country's minority groups.
Judicial Formation and Training
The Ibero-American Supreme Courts and Tribunals attending this Summit, well aware of the need to encourage and promote specialized training of judicial officials, agree to formulate the following policies:
1. To encourage judge selection mechanisms that especially address the definition of a vocational profile that meets the specific needs of the judicial powers in Ibero-America.
2. To strengthen specialized training of the judicial officials, establishing incentive mechanisms for continuous formation based on performance indicators.
3. To promote participation of universities and other academic institutions in the formation of judicial personnel and in the research on justice matters.
4. To promote the use of information technology within the judicial official's formation, as a tool to facilitate the reciprocal information exchange among Ibero-American countries.
5. To show particular interest to managerial formation as an essential aspect of the judge's formation for the best performance of his functions.
6. To divulge the fundamental necessary ethical principles for the performance of the judicature.
7. To show particular interest in juridical hermeneutics as an essential aspect of the judge's formation for the best performance of his functions.
The Ibero-American Supreme Courts and Tribunals attending this event, in order to execute the previously enunciated policies, commit themselves to carry out the following actions:
1. To identify the strengths and weaknesses of the participating countries regarding judicial formation.
2. To promote exchange agreements for the formation of Ibero-American judicial officials.
3. To promote the creation of the judicial official formation school at Ibero-American level.
Alternate Conflict Resolution
The Ibero-American Supreme Courts and Tribunals attending this Summit, well aware of the importance of effectively ensuring the access to justice, acknowledge the need to promote alternate conflict resolution mechanisms through the following policies:
1. To promote the use of alternate conflict resolution mechanisms.
2. Supreme Courts and Tribunals must establish the scope of application of alternate conflict resolution mechanisms.
The Presidents of the Supreme Courts and Tribunals attending this Summit, in order to execute the above-enunciated policies, commit themselves to carry out the following actions:
1. To design projects related to the typification of matters that must be submitted to the alternate conflict resolution mechanisms.
2. To conduct an economic cost and opportunity study of the alternate conflict resolution mechanisms.
3. To evaluate the effectiveness of reconcilement, resolution of controversies in equity (peace judges), and internal and international arbitration.
4. The creation an Ibero-American reconcilement and arbitration system.
5. To educate citizens as well as those participating in each mechanism, for conflict negotiation.
6. To promote the creation of Mediation Centers as another alternate conflict resolution mechanism.
Fight Against Corruption
The Ibero-American Supreme Courts and Tribunals attending this Summit, well aware that corruption in its different forms and modes is a phenomenon which weakens the legitimacy of the democratic system and the stability of institutions, acknowledge the need to actively, firmly and constantly fight it through the formulation of the following policies:
1. Supreme Courts and Tribunals will adopt an active role in the fight against corruption in the private and public activity.
2. To create ethical value-awareness within the judicial system, as an instrument for fighting corruption.
3. To strengthen the judicial official selection process as a preventive measure in the fight against corruption.
The Presidents of the Supreme Courts and Tribunals attending this Summit, in order to execute the above-enunciated policies, commit themselves to carry out the following actions:
1. To create the Code of Ethics of the Ibero-American judicial official.
2. Constitution of Courts for simulated trials that permit the establishment of judicial policies against corruption.
3. Development and exchange of statistics of the sentences referred to the different types of corruption offenses, and the penalties imposed in them.
4. To promote the simplification of procedures in judicial causes.
5. To examine adaptation of anti-corruption legislation of participating countries to the postulates of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (underwritten in Caracas, Venezuela on March 29, 1996).
6. To study the legal basis of incorporating into our legal texts that causes referred to offenses against the public property are imprescriptible and do not admit surety or bail. Likewise, that penal sanction in these causes disqualification for the practice of positions in the public administration.
7. To define interjurisdictional mechanisms to fight organized corruption.
Mechanisms for the Solution of Penitentiary Crisis
The Ibero-American Supreme Courts and Tribunals attending this Summit, acknowledge the importance of addressing the penitentiary crisis affecting our countries and agree to formulate the following policies:
1. The Supreme Courts and Tribunals must contribute to the responsibility the Judicial Power has toward the penitentiary system regarding the jurisdictional activity.
2. It is essential to protect the Human Rights of the inmates.
The Presidents of the Supreme Courts and Tribunals attending this Summit, in order to execute the above-enunciated policies, commit themselves to carry out the following actions:
1. Conduct and have available a census of defendants which determines the number of causes pending for decision.
2. Conduct jurimetrical studies for costs and procedural times that can determine the efficiency level of penal procedures.
3. To be prone to the incorporation of special (itinerant) judges to reduce the existing judicial delays.
4. Establish criteria to avoid iterative judicial delays and to apply disciplinary measures for judges who incur in them.
5. Play an active role in the initiative and discussion of law projects, which authorize alternative penal sanctions other than privation of liberty.
Environment Protection and Sustainable Development
The Ibero-American Supreme Courts and Tribunals attending this Summit, acknowledge the importance of juridically protecting the environment to guarantee the sustainable development of our society and agree to formulate the following policies:
1. The Supreme Courts and Tribunals must commit themselves jointly with the Government Attorney's Office to the protection of the environment and encourage the justice administration system to exercise the jurisdictional protection of the right to the environment.
2. To acknowledge each individual's right to enjoy an adequate environment for its optimal development.
3. To adopt an institutional policy for the disclosure of the individual right to the environment.
The Presidents of the Supreme Courts and Tribunals attending this Summit, in order to execute the above-enunciated policies, commit themselves to carry out the following actions:
1. To support the formation of judges in environmental matters, using the international standards and the decisions that participating countries make concerning this matter.
2. To compile, analyze and exchange decisions that participating countries have produced regarding environmental protection.
3. To promote the creation of Supranational Tribunals that will safeguard the protection of the environment.
4. To develop encounters to disclose the importance of the preservation of the environment.
5. To establish a network of information exchange in all matters dealt with by the environmental offense commission.
Drug Traffic and its Sequels
The Ibero-American Supreme Courts and Tribunals represented in this Summit, in view of the importance of promoting international cooperation in the fight against organized crime having to do with drug traffic, agree to formulate the following policies:
1. The Supreme Courts and Tribunals declare drug traffic an offense against humanity, because it transcends the jurisdictional scope of each Court.
2. They will promote the creation of a Supranational Penal Tribunal that will try the cases exceeding the competence of the local tribunals.
3. To establish a protection mechanism for judges who sanction the offense of drug traffic.
The Presidents of the Supreme Courts and Tribunals attending this Summit, in order to execute the above-enunciated policies, commit themselves to carry out the following actions:
1. Encourage continuous specialization of the judicial officials regarding the treatment that must be given to the offenses of drug traffic.
2. Promote the standardization of judicial processes and the compatibility in the types and penal sanctions in the Ibero-American community.
3. To establish an Ibero-American information network on processes, sentences and persons related to this offense.
4. To support the judges who try offenses of drug traffic, with the purpose of achieving an increase in the quality of the decisions regarding this matter.
Final Conclusion
The Ibero-American Supreme Courts and Tribunals attending this Summit, have agreed on the creation of a Technical Unit with the purpose of following up on the development of actions whose execution we have decided to undertake. The referred entity will have its seat in the city of Caracas, Republic of Venezuela, and will be composed of the delegates of the countries here represented, which will be supporting us in the Organization of Supreme Courts of Justice of the Americas.