DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE MONTIEL ARGÜELLO 1. I dissented on operative paragraphs 1, 2, 6 and 7 of the judgment the Court delivered in the Mayagna (Sumo) Awas Tingni Community Case. 2. I recognize that this is a highly complex case and that the Court and each of its Judges have deliberated upon it calmly and thoughtfully. 3. The Government of Nicaragua is very respectful of indigenous peoples’ rights, which are amply recognized in the Constitution and secondary laws. 4. In my judgment, this case did not involve a violation of Article 25 of the American Convention on Human Rights (hereinafter “the Convention”) which guarantees the existence of an effective judicial remedy against acts that violate fundamental rights. The Court has concluded otherwise, but did so on the basis of a false premise, i.e., that there is no clearly regulated procedure for titling indigenous communities’ properties. The truth is that the Instituto Nicaragüense de Reforma Agraria (Nicaraguan Agrarian Reform Institute - INRA), then the MIDINRA and now the Office of Rural Land Titling, have had property-titling authorities. Their decisions can be challenged by means of a petition of amparo filed with the Supreme Court. That the existing legislation can be improved is not to say that it does not exist. As the Court acknowledges in its own judgment, the Government of Nicaragua has hired a consulting firm to conduct a comprehensive diagnostic study of all the indigenous communities and has introduced a bill in the Legislative Assembly, titled the “Statute Regulating the Communal Property System of the Atlantic Coast and Bosawas Indigenous Communities.” 5. Again in connection with Article 25 of the Convention, the Court took a number of petitions of amparo under consideration. The first was filed by the Community in September 1995. It was not seeking title to their lands; instead, it was challenging a logging concession that had been awarded. The petition argued that the concession would have a detrimental effect on their lands. The petition was declared inadmissible on the grounds that it was filed extemporaneously. The fact that the Supreme Court decision came down more than one year after the petition was filed was not prejudicial to the Community. The Court would never have granted cert because the petition was filed after the time limit. 6. The other amparo that the Court considered was the constitutionality challenge that two members of the Consejo Regional de la Región Autónoma Atlántico Norte (RAAN) filed in March 1996 and that, after various proceedings, was successful in getting the Court to nullify and cancel the logging concession in question. However, the nullification was based solely on the fact that the concession had not been approved by the Regional Council’s full membership; in other words, it had nothing to do with the demarcation of the Community’s lands and was not filed by the Community. 7. In its finding that Article 21 of the Convention, which guarantees the right to property, had been violated, the Court reasoned that Nicaragua has no procedure for putting into practice the recognition of the communal property of indigenous peoples. That premise is untrue, as the preceding paragraphs show. The fact that no titles of