237. The Court does not find it necessary to rule on the measures of reparation requested
in relation to the arguments described above, and refers back to its decision in this
Judgment in this regard.
E.
Compensation
E.1) Pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage
E.1.1) Arguments of the Commission and of the parties
238. The Commission did not refer specifically to pecuniary measures of reparation, but
asked that Mr. García Lucero and his family receive integral and appropriate reparation.
239. The representatives alleged that the pension and the special payment that Mr. García
Lucero has received as “a person dismissed for political reasons” are not sufficient to repair
the pecuniary damage caused to him as a result of “the loss of the pension to which he
would have had access, if he had not been detained, tortured and expelled from his
country.” Therefore, the representatives asked the Court to adjust the pension that Mr.
García Lucero receives. They noted that this measure could be considered reparation for the
harm caused by the loss of the employment that Mr. García Lucero had in Chile.
240. In addition, the representatives advised the Court that Mr. García Lucero does not
know what happened to the savings he had in a Chilean bank account. The representatives
asked the Court to order the State “to determine the fate of these savings and return them
to Mr. García Lucero with the bank interest accrued during all the years in which he did not
have access to his savings,” and that the total be changed into pounds sterling without any
cost.
241. The representatives also asserted that “the suffering caused to both Mr. García
Lucero and his wife Elena as a result of the denial of justice and the absence of adequate
reparation should also be a source of reparation owing to the harm caused.” In this regard,
the representatives asked the Court to order Chile to pay GBP 30,000.00 (thirty thousand
pounds sterling) as compensation for “non-pecuniary damage” caused to Mr. García Lucero.
The representatives explained that this compensation was appropriate, because “it should
be noted that don Leopoldo should receive redress because he lost, as a direct result of
Chile’s actions, the opportunities that he would otherwise have had to lead a decent life.”
They added that the State should provide Mrs. García Lucero with a compensatory payment
of GBP 20,000.00 (twenty thousand pounds sterling) for the non-pecuniary damage
suffered owing to her husband’s expulsion from Chile, as well as “having had to dedicate her
life, full-time, […] to care for him […] and having had to be far from her family in Chile,
without being able to return to her country of birth and without having the financial
resources to visit her country following the fall of the dictatorship, or to attend her mother’s
funeral.”
242. The State contested the representatives’ request that measures of reparation be
ordered in relation to the payment of compensation for non-pecuniary damage, which, it
argued, are based on facts other than the obligations to investigate and to provide
reparation for the torture as of the time this could be required of the State, such as the
suffering resulting from acts of torture and their effects, and from Mr. García Lucero’s exile.
E.1.2) Considerations of the Court
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