violated. That right to due process, in turn, is intimately linked to the very right of access to the courts. A basic principle of the independence of the judiciary is that every person has the right to be heard by regular courts, following procedures previously established by law. States are not to create “[t]ribunals that do not use the duly established procedures of the legal process … to displace the jurisdiction belonging to the ordinary courts or judicial tribunals.” […] This Court has held that the guarantees to which every person brought to trial is entitled must be not only essential but also judicial. “Implicit in this conception is the active involvement of an independent and impartial judicial body having the power to pass on the lawfulness of measures adopted in a state of emergency.” […] The Court has established that the military proceedings against the civilians accused of having engaged in crimes of treason were conducted by “faceless” judges and prosecutors, and therefore involved a number of restrictions that made such proceedings a violation of due process. In effect, the proceedings were conducted on a military base off limits to the public. All the proceedings in the case, even the hearing itself, were held out of the public eye and in secret, a blatant violation of the right to a public hearing recognized in the Convention. --Castillo Petruzzi et al. Case, I/A Court H.R., Judgment of May 30, 1999 (paras. 128-131, 172). ***** In the context of [the State party] and other countries, the Commission has repeatedly noted that "faceless" justice systems do not provide adequate due process guarantees for criminal defendants…. The anonymity of the prosecutors, judges and witnesses deprives the defendant of the basic guarantees of justice. Because the defendant does not know who is judging or accusing him, he cannot know whether that person is qualified to do so. Nor may he know whether there exists any basis to request recusal of these authorities based on incompetence or lack of impartiality. As a result, the defendant cannot be guaranteed trial by a competent, independent and impartial court as guaranteed by Article 8(1) of the American Convention. The defendant is also prevented from carrying out any effective examination of the witnesses against him. The right to examination is largely important, because it provides the defendant with the opportunity to question the witness’s credibility and knowledge of the facts. The defendant cannot adequately examine a witness if he does not possess any information regarding the witness’s background or motivations and does not know how the witness 59