3 proceeding designed to determine the rights and obligations of a person, and not only in criminal proceedings. Consequently, the extended formula included in the first paragraph, a formula that sets out principles and objectives of a general scope, makes the application of the measures established in the remaining paragraphs binding, when this is pertinent for the case in question. This is so, because the instruments, rights or guarantees set out in the remaining paragraphs of Article 8 correspond to the procedural defense system which ensures that those rights and obligations are determined fairly, and they are obviously not restricted to criminal matters, but involve all areas of the social life of the individual in which, therefore, petitions and disputes can be submitted that must be resolved by different State bodies with jurisdictional or para-jurisdictional attributes, or their subsidiary organs. 11. It is relevant that the judgment in the Maritza Urrutia case should make a significant contribution to the understanding of Article 8, when we consider that the guarantees included in its second and third paragraph, which are directly related to the facts of this case, should be observed both in legal proceedings, strictly speaking, and in non-legal proceedings and procedures, or those that are not related to a legal action, but precede or are concomitant with it and that may have an unfavorable and unjustified impact on the juridical status of the person participating in the action. This applies, of course, to investigations prior to the prosecution of an accused person and to other acts relating to the prosecution or that can cause relevant effects for the judicial or extrajudicial determination of the rights and obligations of an individual, as was seen in the case in question. Sergio García-Ramírez Judge Manuel E. Ventura-Robles Secretary