Twenty years ago, the Center for Reproductive Rights published an article entitled, “What role can international litigation play in the promotion and advancement of reproductive rights in Latin America?”
The authors candidly outlined their strategy of manipulating the judicial process to produce changes in laws that national congresses were unlikely to pass as legislation. They also recounted earlier efforts to employ judicial activism in several countries in the region.
Two decades later, this activism has been strengthened with the illegal, and often brazen, interference from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights — the IACHR.
The pro-life movement has fought hard against this regional strategy of the abortion lobby. Throughout this battle, while well-funded pro-abortion activists depend on the Center for Reproductive Rights, pro-lifers can rely on the indispensable assistance of PRI’s Office for Ibero-America.
A few weeks ago PRI reported on the Caso Beatriz (the Beatriz v. El Salvador case). There, the abortion lobby had exploited the death of a sick woman who had earlier given birth to an anencephalic child. They concocted their case out of thin air, arguing that Beatriz had died because her doctors would not give her an abortion. In fact, she had died from injuries received in a motorcycle accident over four years after giving birth to her child.
This travesty exemplifies the judicial activism in the IACHR Court. Abortionists do not identify a case, they “fabricate” it. They aim to use the Beatriz case to set a precedent for the legalization of abortion, not only in El Salvador but in the entire region.
The decision in Caso Beatriz will come down by the end of the year, but the battle will not be over. Similar cases are proliferating in the IACHR Court, and their implications could be serious indeed. In reality, the IACHR Court is intent on becoming a higher authority than the combined executive, legislative and judicial powers of every country in the region. Their arrogant seizure of such power constitutes one of today’s most prominent and dangerous cases of ideological colonialism.
The Left’s Next Target: Marriage
A few days ago, the IACHR Court’s ruled in the case of Olivera Fuentes v. Peru. In this case, two young males had sued the Government of Peru on the grounds that they were being discriminated against because of their “sexual orientation.”
The facts of the case are straightforward. In 2004, security personnel in a supermarket in Lima removed the couple from the cafeteria when they refused to cease indulging in “signs of affection.” After losing in Peru’s lower courts and the country’s Supreme Court, the couple brought their case before IACHR with the help of a radical Peruvian feminist group.
In its unanimous opinion, the IACHR ruled that Peru had violated various rights of the couple, including rights to personal liberty, judicial guarantees, privacy, equality before the law, and judicial protection. In addition, it stated that Peru’s national courts acted with prejudice by rejecting the testimony of the “victim.”
The IACHR Court stated: “In no case may testimony be dismissed solely on the basis of a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression,” thus granting the presumption of not only veracity but preeminence to the testimony of any LGBTQ+ person. It is also considered as aggravating the psychological impact on the victim, given the “deep feelings and anguish” inflicted by the “denial of justice.”
The IACHR Court condemned the Peruvian State and ordered it to, among other things, to:
1) provide psychological treatment to the victim.
2) design and implement an annual information campaign to raise awareness in the media about “the importance of promoting in society a culture of respect, non-discrimination and guarantee of the rights of LGBTIQ+ persons.”
3) develop an educational plan on sexual and gender diversity, non-discrimination and LGBTIQ+ human rights to be incorporated into courses for administrative, judicial or other authorities, in addition to developing a “manual of legal reasoning on Inter-American standards in cases of discrimination against LGBTIQ+ persons.”
4) design and implement a public policy to monitor and oversee that companies and workers comply with the “Inter-American standards on equality and non-discrimination of LGBTIQ+ persons”, and “require companies to train their workers and collaborators (including security personnel) in respect for LGBTIQ+ consumers.”
As if that weren’t sufficiently insulting, the IACHR ordered the defendants to pay the costs of the plaintiff’s legal defense. And guess who his lawyers were? Of course, LGTBIQ NGOs. The case was sponsored by DEMUS and Synergia, who are to be paid USD $15 thousand and USD $10 thousand, respectively, in the unlikely case that the Government of Peru considers the entire charade to be a legitimate function of the IACHR.
The case is typical of the Left’s judicial strategy throughout the region: local NGOs “fabricate” a frivolous case that they do not mind losing in local courts because they can then take them to the IACHR, which is as corrupt as the NGOs when it comes to judicial prejudice.
PRI argues that the Olivera Fuentes vs. Peru judgment, like several others in recent years, reinterprets the Pact of San José or the American Convention on Human Rights. It pretends that it can force our countries’ legislatures, executives, and judiciaries to betray not only our laws but our Constitutions.
In the coming years, many LGTBIQ+ bills will be introduced in the legislatures of the countries of the region. Given the IACHR’s ruling in Olivera Fuentes vs. Peru, the radicals’ central argument will be the “obligation” imposed by the Court’s “authority.”
Of course, it will be up to each national Congress, not the IACHR, to decide whether or not to pass such legislation. But count on this: our opponents will insist that the IACHR’s rulings are binding, regardless of national sovereignty, and that the Peruvian state must comply with them.
In opposition, we at PRI Iberoamerica will argue that the judgments of the IACHR Court are binding only so long as they respect the limits of the Pact of San José and the limits on the jurisdiction of the IACHR Court. Most importantly, we will argue that no judgment can be permitted to reformulate, reinterpret, or contradict our Constitution.
In the last decades, the reputation of the IACHR Court has seriously deteriorated among the people of Peru, due to its presumptuous rulings in favor of terrorist groups and against members of our Armed Forces.
But rest assured: as the Culture of Death continues its war against the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God, all of PRI’s offices will join the pro-life movement worldwide to continue the cultural battle for Life, Family, and Freedom.
