complaint, which were on no account prosecutable by a minor-offence
procedure. Lastly, he claimed that the failure to investigate constituted a
breach of article 12 of the Convention.
2.6 The Provincial High Court dismissed the appeal on 17 June 1998.
According to the judgement, counsel for the author, at the oral proceedings
on 25 November 1997, had merely requested that the complaint filed by his
client should be joined to that before the court. The judge had acceded to
that request, suspended the proceedings and set a new date for their
resumption. The author had failed to appear for those proceedings without
due reason. As he had thus failed to support his complaint at the appointed
time, the judge had had no alternative but to reject it in the absence of
evidence for the prosecution. The judgement concluded that the judicial
proceedings had been terminated owing to the party's inaction.
2.7 The author rejects the arguments set forth in the judgement. He claims
that he did attend the proceedings, although he arrived a few minutes late,
and that the facts reported in his complaint should have been investigated
automatically even if none of the parties had raised them in the proceedings,
since they constituted circumstantial evidence of criminal conduct (a
complaint having been filed and evidence submitted).
2.8 On 3 July 1998, the author filed an amparo application with the
Constitutional Court, alleging violations of the following provisions: article
15 of the Constitution (right to physical integrity) and the corresponding
articles of the Convention; the provision of article 24 of the Constitution
concerning the right to an appropriate legal procedure, since the facts
reported could not be dealt with in minor-offence proceedings but in
ordinary criminal proceedings for more serious offences, which would not
be prosecuted by an investigating judge; the provision of article 24 of the
Constitution concerning the right to adversarial proceedings, since, despite
the fact that the judgement by the Provincial High Court indicated that the
Office of the Public Prosecutor objected to the appeal and requested
confirmation of the initial judgement, the author had never been informed of
the objection filed by the prosecutor and was thus denied the opportunity to
challenge it; the jurisprudence of the Committee against Torture in respect
of article 13 of the Convention. (1)
2.9 The Constitutional Court declared the appeal inadmissible in a resolution
of 19 January 2000, stating, inter alia, that the contested judgements were
constitutionally sound. It further stated that the author's procedural conduct
had been the decisive factor because he had simply requested that his
complaint against the officers of the Local Police should be joined to the
subject matter of the proceedings, but without bringing charges against