Caceras v Areco

• Jurisdicción: Paraguay
• Fecha: 02 Septiembre 1938
• Número de expediente: 165
• Emisor: Court of Appeal (Paraguay)

Paraguay, Civil Appeal Court.

Case No. 165

Caceras

and

Areco.

Diplomatic Immunity — Chargé d'Affaires — Civil Actions — The Law of Paraguay — Absence of Specific Provisions of Municipal Law.

The Facts.—The plaintiff brought an action for damages alleged to have resulted from a traffic accident. As it appeared that the defendant was the chargé d'affaires of Uruguay, the Court of first instance of its own motion annulled all proceedings and ordered the record to be sent to the Minister of Foreign Relations. The plaintiff appealed.

Held: that the defendant was exempt from jurisdiction. The Court said: “In Paraguay there is no explicit law relating to the extraterritoriality of foreign diplomatic agents. However, Article 14 of Law No. 325, Article 16 of the Civil Code, and Article 63 of the Code of Civil and Commercial Procedure, authorize the application of general principles of law when a case occurs which cannot be decided by reference to existing law. Chargés d' affaires constitute a category of diplomatic agents created by the Regulations of the Congress of Vienna of 1815 and by the Protocol signed by the five great European Powers at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818. This category is admitted and recognized in Paraguay, as may be seen in the Decrees published in the Official Registers, in which chargés d' affaires are recognized ‘with the immunities, exemptions and prerogatives inherent in the office which they hold’, and in Decree No. 43,826, which regulates the functions of the Diplomatic Corps.

“At the same time, the governments of the Republics represented at the Sixth American International Conference held in Habana in 1928, agreed to a Convention1 which included the principles generally admitted by all nations as to the rights and duties of diplomatic officials. This Convention, of which Paraguay is a signatory, provides in its Article 3 that...