came to the Mayor’s Office alleging irregularities in the Office of the Director General of Pensions (which is under the Ministry of the Treasury) involving 1,186,000.00 bolivianos deposited into the private account of Mr. Enrique Penny Bardelli; this amount of money should have been deposited in the account of the Office of the Director of Pensions as social contributions accrued by employees of the municipality. 29. The petitioners observe that on December 15, 1999, then Mayor Andrade reported the fraud to the Judicial Police (Policía Técnical Judicial – PTJ) to have the matter investigated. They note that on December 17, 1999, the Office of the City Mayor filed a formal complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Office against the persons suspected of being responsible for the fraud. The petitioners state that in its first report, the Judicial Police concluded that there was sufficient evidence of culpability in the case of at least 5 persons, but neither of them was Ms. Andrade. They indicate that on January 31, 2000, the prosecutor’s indictment was issued so that proceedings could be instituted against 19 persons. The petitioners state that in the case of Ms. Andrade, the prosecutor asked that the City Council determine whether there were grounds to prosecute and did not charge her with any crime. The petitioners observe that the case was docketed with the Seventh Criminal Examining Judge who on February 2, 2000, issued the order to investigate 19 persons; Ms. Andrade was not named among them. They point that the Mayor’s Office did not file a complaint against Ms. Andrade, either, and that the report of the Financial Investigation Unit (FIU) did not hold her responsible for the act; instead, it concluded that funds had been siphoned off into the SERAMEC account, whose legal representative was Mr. Juan Enrique Penny Bardelli, who then funneled those funds to members of the Gader company. 30. The petitioners state that the PTJ’s expanded report concluded that there was no evidence implicating Ms. Andrade in any crime. They state that the prosecutor sent this report to the Seventh Criminal Examining Judge, who then sent the case up to the Superior Court of Justice to institute a special case against Ms. Andrade under a special procedure known as “Caso Corte”, despite the fact that there was no evidence against her. The petitioners explained that the procedure known as “Caso Corte” was a special legal proceeding used to judge high-ranking public officials and was notorious for the fact that no one was ever convicted. It was, therefore, routinely used to protect “political arrangements” because, by law, this special jurisdiction supplanted the regular courts in these special cases. The petitioners contend that all the accused attempted to implicate Ms. Andrade who, because of her office, was to be prosecuted through that special legal proceeding. They point out that once the case was opened in this “jurisdiction of privilege”, all the defendants were released and the process came to a standstill for some months. Then, on June 20, 2000, the Constitutional Court declared this special procedure unconstitutional, whereupon all the proceedings conducted in the case were declared null and void.3 31. The petitioners observe that on July 26, 2000, the Eighth Criminal Examining Judge returned the case to the Seventh Criminal Examining Judge to resume proceedings in the case before ordinary courts. They report that on August 19, 2000, they therefore asked the Eighth Judge to nullify the proceedings and exclude Ms. Andrade from the case since the case prosecuted in the regular courts did not name her among the defendants. The petitioners assert that the La Paz Mayor’s Office filed a challenge seeking disqualification of the Seventh Examining Judge, which was upheld, whereupon the case was sent to the Eighth Criminal Examining Judge. Ms. Andrade appeared before the Eighth Judge on September 26, 2000, and again asked him to declare the proceedings conducted against her to be null and void. The petitioners report that the case file was referred to the prosecutor for an opinion, which was issued on October 31, 2000. The Prosecutor asked to expand charges against Ms. Andrade with the crimes of dereliction of duty, mismanagement of public resources and fraud. The petitioners state that on November 29, 2000, the Eighth Criminal Court expanded the court order opening an investigation to include Ms. Andrade Salmón and four other persons. 32. They assert that on December 18, 2000, Ms. Andrade’s preliminary statement was taken and, in the hearing on precautionary measures held immediately thereafter, the Eighth Examining Judge decided to order other alternatives to pre-trial detention in Ms. Andrade’s case. The petitioners point out that for two 3 The petitioners reported that in Circular No. 29/2000, of August 22, 2000, the Constitutional Court held that the cases prosecuted in “jurisdictions of privilege” were permanently and henceforth abolished effective June 1, 1999.