June 18, 2013 the petitioners stated that, given the State’s unwillingness, “the conditions for a (…) friendly settlement procedure do not exist,” and they requested that the Commission continue with the merits phase of the proceedings. 7. The petitioners submitted their observations on the merits on June 12 and 18, and on July 18 and 22, 2013. For its part, the State submitted its additional observations on the merits on December 16, 2013. Later, the IACHR received new communications from the petitioners and the State. All of the communications were duly forwarded to the parties. III. POSITIONS OF THE PARTIES A. Position of the petitioners 8. The petitioners alleged that the State is responsible for the different acts and omissions that resulted in the minor children Osmín Ricardo Tobar Ramírez and J.R. being separated from their families in Guatemala City and put up for intercountry adoption, which broke the brother’s family core. They asserted that the various administrative and judicial appeals filed by their mother Flor María Ramírez Escobar and the father of one of them, Gustavo Amílcar Tobar Fajardo, were all unsuccessful. They stated that this situation arose in the larger context of a significant number of irregular intercountry adoptions in Guatemala. They underscored that this background has been corroborated by different local organizations and international bodies. 9. The petitioners reported that on January 9, 1997, personnel from the Office of the Attorney General of Guatemala appeared at the home of Mrs. Ramírez and took the two boys to the “Hogar Asociación Los Niños de Guatemala” (Child Care Residence of the Guatemala Children's Association) (hereinafter “the Association Residence”), a State-sponsored institution. They indicated that on August 6, 1997, the Ramírez boys were judicially declared to have been abandoned without duly justified cause or exhaustion of remedies to maintain the family unit. They maintained that on May 26, 1998, the boys were given up for adoption to two families in the United States. They added that the parents personally appeared before the State authorities to file appeals with respect to the judicial declaration of abandonment in the adoption case, but failed to obtain an effective response. The domestic proceedings are detailed in the section containing the established facts. 10. With respect to the merits of the case, the petitioners asserted that the State violated the rights to a fair trial and judicial protection of the children and their parents during the proceedings for the declaration of abandonment and during the adoption process. They stated that the boys were not properly heard. They maintained that the parents were also denied the opportunity to present their arguments and defense evidence. They further stated that many of the court orders did not properly state the grounds on which they were based, and that the parents were not given notice of some of those decisions. 11. They stated that the parents’ motion for review took an unreasonable length of time to adjudicate; a motion for review was filed in August 1997 in the proceedings for the declaration of abandonment, and was still pending when the adoption of the Ramírez boys was ordered. They added that the motion for review remained pending for an additional, unwarranted period of time after the Ramírez boys were adopted, and was only granted in November 2000. They stated that, in spite of this fact, the court’s request to have statements taken from the two U.S. adoptive families was never carried out. 12. They explained that this was not a complicated matter, that the rights affected required a rapid solution, and that the parents’ activity was very intense. They maintained that, even though the judicial declaration of abandonment was set aside, the State took no measures to reestablish contact between the parents and the children. They explained that the State placed a disproportionate burden on Mr. Tobar by requiring him to assume the costs of the proceedings to summons the adoptive parents. 2