interpretations that are not in conformity with the Convention or less effective as regards the enjoyment and protection of the respective right or freedom; in this sense, there is a parallel with the “compliant interpretation” of the Constitution made by national courts, especially the constitutional judges. Secondly, and only if compliance of the domestic rule with the Convention cannot be achieved, “conventionality control” should be applied with greater intensity, either by suspending the norm in the specific case or by declaring it invalid with general effects, due to its non-compliance with the Convention, according to the respective competences of each national judge. c) Conventionality control must be exercised “ex officio”: whether or not invoked by the parties 42. This feature of “diffuse conventionality control” is a specification of the original doctrine. It was established in the Case of the Dismissed Congressional Employees (Aguado Alfaro et al.) v. Peru, 54 two months after the Case of Almonacid Arellano v. Chile, and ever since then has been firmly upheld in the Inter-American Court’s case-law. It involves the possibility domestic judges exercising conventionality control, regardless of whether the parties invoked it. In fact, it complements the “diffuse” nature of that control. If the prior nature of “diffuse conventionality control” established the Inter-American Court’s intention that any judge, regardless of rank, grade or area of expertise had the “obligation” to exercise it (from where the term “diffuse control” comes), now that feature is further accentuated by specifying that it is an obligation that must be exercised "ex officio," which means that under any circumstance, judges must exercise this control, since “this function should not be exclusively limited by the expressions or actions of the plaintiffs in each specific case.” 55 43. It is even possible that in the domestic jurisdiction there are appeals or measures of defense that are appropriate and efficient to combat the lack of or ineffective exercise of “diffuse conventionality control” by a judge (for example, through an appeal, cassation remedy, or motion of amparo), when such control has not been exercised ex officio. This is a new facet of the principle of iura novit curia principle (the judge knows the law and jurisprudence of the Convention). Block” d) Parameter of “diffuse conventionality control”: the “Conventionality 44. In principle, the parameter of “diffuse conventionality control" by national judges (regardless of whether or not they carry out constitutionality control), is the Pact of San Jose and the case-law of the Inter-American Court which interprets it. The last part of the jurisprudential doctrine establishes: “In this task, the judges and bodies linked to the administration of justice must take into account not only the [Pact of San Jose], but also its interpretation by the Inter-American Court, the final interpreter of the American Convention. 56 (Underlining added). 45. Nevertheless, the Inter-American Court’s own “jurisprudence” has gradually expanded the Inter-American corpus juris on human rights in order to lay the 54 Idem. 55 Para. 128, in fine, Case of Dismissed Congressional Employees (Aguado Alfaro et al.) v. Peru, supra note 15. 56 Case of Cabrera García and Montiel Flores v. Mexico, supra note 1, para. 227. 16

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