63 freedom during proceedings may only serve a precautionary purpose, not punitive goals; (b) in no instance may the release of the accused during the proceedings be denied on the basis of such concepts as “social alarm,” “social repercussion,” or 212 “dangerousness,” since these are judgments based on material criteria that convert pretrial detention into an anticipated sanction; and (c) legal restrictions on the granting of release during proceedings or the legal imposition of pretrial detention may not be considered juris et de jure conditions that do not need to be proved in the specific case and that only need to be claimed. The Convention does not allow for a whole category of suspects, merely on the basis of that condition, to be excluded from the right of 213 remaining free during their trials. 152. In the case of Díaz Peña v. Venezuela, the IACHR addressed the legal presumption of flight risk in cases involving crimes punishable by prison terms of ten years or more. The Commission found that applying the flight risk presumption without a detailed examination of the specific circumstances of the case constituted a form of arbitrary arrest, even when such presumption was provided for in law. The Commission further found that the use of that presumption on the basis of the expected punishment 214 constituted a violation of the right to the presumption of innocence. 153. Similarly, in the case of Usón Ramírez v. Venezuela, which also dealt with flight risk as grounds for pretrial detention, the Commission stressed that courts were required to establish the component elements of flight risk by means of “reasonable arguments,” and that they could not merely invoke it or cite the statutes that provided for such a justification. In that case, although there was no legal presumption regarding flight risk, the trial court found that the possible applicable sentence indicated that the accused would attempt to abscond from justice, without providing any proof of that supposition or of the need or proportion of pretrial detention. In light of that, the IACHR found that the victim’s incarceration was arbitrary 215 and violated the right to the presumption of innocence. 154. The European Court has also ruled that flight risk cannot be based solely on the severity of the possible punishment but that instead it must be considered in conjunction with another series of relevant factors. The expectation of a lengthy sentence and the weight of the evidence can be of relevance, but they are not in 212 See, for example, the analysis offered by Diego Portales University in the Annual Report on the Human Rights Situation in Chile 2012 (Informe Anual sobre Derechos Humanos en Chile) 2012 (pp. 211 et seq.) regarding the treatment given to the criterion of “risk to society” in Law 20.253 of 2008, the “anticrime agenda.” 213 IACHR, Report No. 86/09, Case 12.553, Merits, Jorge, José, and Dante Peirano Basso, Uruguay, August 6, 2009, paras. 89, 140, 141, and 144. 214 IACHR, Report No. 84/10, Case 12.703, Merits, Raúl José Díaz Peña, Venezuela, July 13, 2010, paras. 150, 152, 153, and 172. 215 IACHR, Application from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in Case 12.554, Francisco Usón Ramírez, July 25, 2008, paras. 172, 176, 178, 179, 180, and 184.