Chapter VII of this judgment, they will be considered beneficiaries of the reparations that the Court will now order. B. Obligation to investigate i) Investigation of the facts, and prosecution and punishment, as appropriate, of those responsible; non-applicability of the Amnesty Law and obstacles to the achievement of justice 364. The Commission asked that the criminal responsibility for the arbitrary detention, torture and murder of Vladimir Herzog should be determined by a thorough and impartial judicial investigation of the facts in accordance with due legal process in order to identify and punish those responsible for such violations, and that the results of the investigation should be published. 365. The Commission also recalled that the State must take into account that crimes against humanity were not subject to amnesties or statutes of limitations and that the State should take all necessary measures to ensure that Law No. 6683/79 (Amnesty Law) as well as other provisions of criminal law, such as statutes of limitations, res judicata, the principles of nonretroactivity and ne bis in idem, do not continue to represent an obstacle for the criminal prosecution of serious human rights violations such as those of the instant case. 366. The representatives asked that the State conduct an investigation into the facts in order to identify the masterminds, perpetrators and accomplices, prosecute them and punish them appropriately. The victim’s family should have full access and capacity to act at all procedural stages, pursuant to domestic law and the Convention. In addition, the results of the investigation must be disseminated widely and publicly, so that Brazilian society may know them. 367. The representatives also asked the Court to determine that the State was obliged to guarantee that the Amnesty Law would not continue to be an obstacle to the investigation of the facts of this case, and also that it ensure the investigation, criminal prosecution and punishment of all those responsible for the crimes denounced. In addition, they asked that the Court determine that the Brazilian State must exercise control of the conventionality of its decisions in order to acknowledge that the Brazilian Amnesty Law had no legal force. 368. Furthermore, they indicated that the whole judicial apparatus and other institution of the State must be bound by the Court’s decisions when settling pending claims concerning the scope of the Amnesty Law for the criminal prosecution of gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity. 369. Finally, they asked the Court to determine that the State may not use any provision of domestic law, or legal instrument such as the statute of limitations, res judicata, the principles of non-retroactivity of criminal laws and non bis in idem, or any similar mechanism that excludes responsibility to waive its obligation to investigate, prosecute and punish those responsible for the gross violations of human rights that took place during the military dictatorship in Brazil. 370. The State argued that this reparation referred to the facts relating to Vladimir Herzog and, therefore, before Brazil had accepted the Court’s contentious jurisdiction. Consequently, the Court did not have temporal competence to examine it. The State also asserted that it was not the Amnesty Law that made it impossible to open the investigation in 2008, and that the previous proceedings, in 1993, did not fall within the Court’s temporal competence. In 93

Select target paragraph3