SEPARATE OPINION OF JUDGE SERGIO GARCÍA-RAMÍREZ IN THE CASE OF GUTIÉRREZ SOLER V. COLOMBIA JUDGMENT OF SEPTEMBER 9, 2005 A) OUT-OF-COURT SETTLEMENTS. CHARACTERISTICS AND CONDITIONS 1. The solution of a dispute submitted before the authorities responsible for deciding on it may be based on an out-of-court settlement reached by the parties, which could have been made before instituting legal proceedings —as it is to be desired whenever possible— or on the decision of the competent authorities, which in most cases are of a judicial character or, in any case, are vested with jurisdictional powers. At present the possibility of reaching an out-of-court settlement to solve a dispute is increasingly resorted to —even in criminal matters— as an alternative to jurisdictional proceedings, which are generally longer, more costly, and more complex. It has been said, perhaps rightly so, that it is more advantageous to reach a shared decision based on the litigants’ understanding and will than to abide by a third party’s decision. 2. Beyond the many considerations which may be made as to the advantages or disadvantages of out-of-court settlements, it is true that public justice could not possibly take on and resolve the great number of cases which are ended through compromise agreements among the parties or acquiescence by of one of the parties to the claims made by the other. This is also true for international trials on human rights, notwithstanding the number of disputes which cannot be settled by agreement, on account of the extreme gravity or complexity of the facts, or of the great advantages to be derived from the precedent set when international authorities issue recommendations or decisions which contribute to establish the content and the new frontiers of the protection of human rights. 3. The Inter-American System allows for friendly settlements to be reached by the parties, which at the non-jurisdictional stage before the Inter-American Commission are the alleged violation of rights victim (or the party appearing as petitioner), and the State, with the approval of the above mentioned body; and which at the jurisdictional stage before the Inter-American Court are the State itself, the alleged victim –thanks to the increasing procedural rights it has gained under the protection of regulatory innovations introduced by the Court— and the Inter-American Commission, as petitioner (deemed to be “only procedurally” a party to the case, as stated by the Rules of the Inter-American Court), the party to the legal action which comes— or does not come— to a compromise when the possibility of an agreed resolution arises. 4. Now then, contrary to what may happen and normally does in domestic legal systems, in which out-of-court settlements in private actions are favored, according to the Inter-American legal system on human rights it is necessary that the authority hearing the case –the Commission or Court, consecutively- should accept (or even foster, in the case of the Inter-American Commission), the understanding reached by the parties to the case and the way it may be formally agreed. This must serve the protection of human rights, an issue of international public policy, the protection of which does not merely rely on the point of view and on the will of private individuals, but goes beyond them and is in the interest of the community which has recognized such rights and has decided to preserve them under the denomination of International Law on human rights, for which purpose it has created a protection system whose design lies in such objective protection, and not just in a mere subjective satisfaction which may be inconsistent with the preservation of the international legal system. The individual then is entitled to report the violation of which he has been a victim or not to do so, under Article 44