QCOSTARICA – The Inter-American Court of Human Rights is ordering Costa Rica to comply with a four-year-old ruling overturning its ban on In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) – Fertilización in vitro (FIV) in Spanish.
Last month the Costa Rica’s Constitutional Court blocked President Luis Guillermo Solis’ attempt to bring the country in line with the 2012 decision via executive order, ruling that only lawmakers could regulate the practice.
But the Inter-American Court (Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos – IDH in Spanish) found Tuesday that an executive decree is sufficient. It also ordered Costa Rica not to use legal means to effectively create obstacles to the implementation of the procedure.
Costa Rica’s top court banned IVF in 2000 on the grounds it violated constitutional protections of life beginning at conception. The procedure often involves the destruction of embryos that don’t get implanted in a woman’s uterus.
Source: La nacion
This issue was a matter of settled law months ago when the Human Rights Court ruled in favour of permitting IVF in Costa Rica. In Costa Rica, decisions of an International Body such as the HRC, which jurisdiction has be adopted and ratified by the Costa Rica Legislature, take precedence over decisions of the Sala IV (Constitutional Court). The Presidential Decree issued by Solis was to implement the previous decision of the HRC, permitting IVF in Costa Rica. The Sala IV was merely wasting time and money in striking-down the Decree; something that it was without jurisdiction to do.