CEDAW/C/50/D/22/2009 5.5 In the case K.N.L.H. v. Peru, 6 the Human Rights Committee had requested the State party to take measures to ensure that the situation was not repeated. According to the author, part of such measures should include both the issuance of guidelines for legal termination of pregnancy in circumstances established under the law and the establishment of an effective judicial remedy in the event that those guidelines are not followed in a satisfactory manner. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, in its 2007 concluding observations addressed to Peru, expressed its concern at the lack of measures to implement the recommendations made by the Human Rights Committee in that case (CEDAW/C/PER/CO/6, para. 24). Those measures still do not exist. 5.6 The author also cites the decision of the European Court of Human Rights of 20 March 2007, in Tysiac v. Poland. 7 The Court determined that there had been a violation of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in arriving at the decision concerning a therapeutic abortion and noted that, once the legislature had decided to allow abortion, it must not structure its legal framework in such a way as to limit the use of that possibility. The Court added that disputes should be settled by an independent body, respecting guarantees of the right to be heard, and it should issue prompt and written grounds for its decision, since the time factor is crucial. 5.7 In Peru there is no administrative or judicial procedure that would have guaranteed the right of L.C. to be heard, allowing her to express her will and establish whether or not she wanted to terminate her pregnancy, the right to obtain a swift and objective response and the possibility of access to a judicial remedy that would guarantee enforcement of the duty to provide the medical services she needed. 5.8 With respect to civil action to seek compensation for damages mentioned by the State, it cannot be considered a sufficient remedy, since the damage suffered by L.C. to her health cannot be repaired. Furthermore, it is retroactive in nature, since L.C. was unable to attain the objective of the termination of her pregnancy and the spinal surgery. State party’s observations on the merits 6.1 On 20 January 2010, the State party submitted observations on the merits of the communication, in which it maintained that, in the present case, none of the alleged violations of the Convention had taken place. 6.2 The State party recalled that in the Peruvian legal system abortion is criminalized. As the only exception, it is not punishable in the event that the conditions established in article 119 of the Penal Code for therapeutic abortion are present. 6.3 The State party considers that article 1 of the Convention contains simply the definition of discrimination, not a right in itself. Articles 2, 3, 5, 12 and 16 are invoked with respect to the allegation that the State did not guarantee timely access without discrimination to health-care services in the form of a legal termination of pregnancy and spinal surgery in order to achieve the due rehabilitation of L.C. 6.4 From the documents made available by the Ministry of Health, it can be inferred that, on her admission to the hospital on 31 March 2007, L.C. received immediate medical attention and various medical examinations were performed on her, including psychiatric and neuropsychological examinations. The gravity of her condition was directly related to her own action (the suicide attempt), and not to the possible physiological effects that the pregnancy could have had on her. 6 7 8 See note 4 above. Tysiac v. Poland (application No. 5410/03), judgement of 20 March 2007.