-14- He referred to the Truth Commission’s mandate; to the legal norms applied by the Commission; to the patterns of violence during the armed conflict and to the investigations in typical cases, some of which served to illustrate the practice of the forced disappearance of children; to the massacres and indiscriminate attacks by the Armed Forces on civilian peasant populations, who were considered to sympathize with or be providing material support to the guerrilla; to the recommendations made by the Truth Commission; and to the lack of subsequent criminal proceedings. He also referred to the systematic shortcomings of justice in El Salvador, especially the failure to investigate crimes committed with the direct or indirect support of the State apparatus, which was not capable of controlling the power of the military and whose “web of corruption, timidity and weakness […] made the work of the judicial system very difficult,” and to the victims’ fear of submitting complaints before official or judicial instances. The Truth Commission recommended a series of judicial reforms to El Salvador. The inability of the courts to apply the law in cases of violent acts committed with the direct or indirect protection of the public authorities forms an integral part of the reality in which the facts investigated by the Commission occurred. Despite the judicial and legislative reforms that have been made since the conflict, criminal justice has not been meted out to those responsible for the grave human rights violations indicated by the Truth Commission. In March 1993, “strongly pressured by the Army, the legislative and executive powers adopted an amnesty law that effectively made it impossible [to conduct] a criminal proceeding against those who were allegedly responsible” for the said violations. 3. David Ernesto Morales Cruz, Deputy Ombudsman The expert witness is a lawyer. From 1990 to 2004, he occupied the following positions: legal collaborator and investigator in the San Salvador Archdiocesan Legal Protection Office (OTLA); Head of the Investigation Department of the Ombudsman’s Office; Director of the project to strengthen this Office in the area of public safety and criminal policies; Deputy Ombudsman for Civil and Political Rights of the said Office; and Deputy Ombudsman for the Defense of Human Rights, a position that he occupied when he gave his expert report. He referred to the so-called “scorched earth” military strategy put in practice from 1980 to 1982 against the civilian population who were believed to sympathize or collaborate with the guerrilla. The forced disappearance of children of both sexes was frequent during these operations. For many years, the Serrano Cruz family was the victim of the indiscriminate persecution endured by the rural populations in the north and west of Chalatenango. The military operation, known as “Operación Limpieza” (Operación Limpieza), carried out in 1982, was one of the largest and most extensive. Owing to the conditions in which the Serrano Cruz found themselves after the disappearance of Erlinda and Ernestina, together with thousands of Salvadorans, they had no possibility of access to justice.