binding for all their organs, including the judiciary, whose members must ensure that the effects of the provisions of these treaties are not impaired by the application of norms or interpretations contrary to their object and purpose. The judges and organs related to the administration of justice at all levels are obliged to monitor ex officio that domestic law is in accordance with the human rights treaties to which the State is a Party, evidently within the framework of their respective competences and the corresponding procedural regulations. In this task, the judges and organs related to the administration of justice, such as the Public Prosecution Service, must take into account not only the American Convention and other inter-American instruments, but also the interpretation of them made by the Inter-American Court.340 B.2. Search for, identification, determination of cause of death, and return of the remains of those found and identified to the next of kin 263. The Commission asked the Court to order the State to establish “a mechanism” that would permit the complete determination of the victims executed and disappeared during the Río Negro massacres, as well as “to continue the identification process and return of the victims’ mortal remains” to their next of kin. For their part, the representatives asked that the determination of the whereabouts of the victims and their identification be carried out using DNA tests and that the return of the mortal remains to the deceased’s next of kin should not entail any cost whatsoever for the latter. 264. The State undertook “to continue with the process of searching for the remains of the victims who have not yet been found” and, to that end, to coordinate “with the jurisdictional bodies in charge of the criminal investigation and [with] the National Institute of Forensic Science […].” 265. As has been established in this Judgment, the exhumation and identification of the deceased victims is part of the obligation to investigate. However, additionally, it has been indicated that this obligation must be fulfilled by the State ex officio (supra para. 217). In this regard, irrespective of the investigations and judicial proceedings that have been opened or that the State may carry out in the future, the obligation persists for the State to conduct ex officio an effective search for the whereabouts of the victims of this case who were forcibly disappeared or presumably executed, because the right of their next of kin to know their whereabouts constitutes a measure of reparation and, therefore, an expectation that the State itself must fulfill.341 The discovery and identification of the victims reveals an historical truth that contributes to closing the mourning process of the Maya Achí community of Río Negro; contributes to the reconstruction of their cultural integrity; enhances the dignity of those who disappeared or who were presumably executed and that of their family members, who have struggled for decades to find their loved ones, and establishes a precedent to ensure that grave, massive and systematic violations such as those that occurred in this case never happen again. 266. Moreover, the Court emphasizes that the remains of the deceased are evidence of what happened to them and offer details of the treatment received, the way in which they died, and the modus operandi of the perpetrators of their death. In addition, the place where the remains were found can provide valuable information to the authorities in 340 Cf. Case of Almonacid Arellano et al. v. Chile, supra, para. 124, and Case of Atala Riffo and daughters v. Chile, supra, paras. 281 to 282. 341 Cf. Case of Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras. Merits, supra, para. 181, and Case of González Medina and family members v. Dominican Republic, supra, para. 209. 91