Chapter 4 • Independence and Impartiality of Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers promoted and what incentives will be offered to whom; they also assign functions. This alone is enough to call the independence of the military judges into serious question”.120 With regard to the fact that the presiding judges were “faceless” the Court said, more specifically, that in such cases “defendants have no way of knowing the identity of their judge and therefore, of assessing their competence”. An additional problem was “the fact that the law does not allow these judges to recuse themselves”.121 In the Genie Lacayo case, however, the Court stated that the fact that it involved a military court did not per se signify that the human rights guaranteed to the accusing party by the Convention were being violated.122 In this particular case, the applicant had been “able to participate in the military proceeding, submit evidence, avail himself of the appropriate remedies and, lastly, apply for judicial review before the Supreme Court of Justice of Nicaragua”; consequently, he could not claim that the application of the decrees on military trials had restricted his procedural rights as protected by the Convention.123 As to the allegation that the decrees concerning military trials violated the principle of independence and impartiality of the military tribunals, not only because of their composition, particularly in the second instance where senior army officials were involved, but also because of the possible use of ideological elements such as that of “Sandinista juridical conscience” on evaluation of evidence, the Court felt that “... although those provisions were in force when the military case was heard and ... could have impaired the independence and impartiality of the military tribunals that heard the case, they were not applied in this specific Case”.124 On the other hand, the Court admitted that in the military court of first instance the court had, inter alia, invoked a legal provision in which the expression “Sandinista law” was used; however, this term had “only a superficial ideological connotation” and it had “not been proven that the invoking [thereof had] either diminished the impartiality and independence of the tribunals or violated Mr. Raymond Genie-Peñalba’s procedural rights”.125 In the light of the different reasoning in these two judgments rendered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights the question might be raised whether, with respect to the second case, it would not have been appropriate to apply the principle that justice must not only be done but also be seen to be done. 120 Ibid., pp. 262-263, paras. 128-130. 121 Ibid., p. 263, para. 133. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has also severely criticized the use of “faceless judges” in Peru; see OAS doc. OEA/Ser.L/V/II.95, doc. 7 rev., Annual Report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 1996, pp. 736-737. 122 I-A Court HR, Genie Lacayo Case, judgment of January 29, 1997, in OAS doc. OAS/Ser.L/V/III.39, doc. 5, Annual Report I-A Court HR 1997, p. 54, para. 84. 123 Ibid., p. 54, para. 85. 124 Ibid., p. 54, para. 86. 125 Ibid., para. 87. 144 Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers