the scope of the judgment broadly.” According to Peru, the judgment and the previous orders on monitoring compliance refer to “investigations aimed at punishing those allegedly responsible for contempt of court, which has implicitly been understood by the parties and the Court itself as performing criminal acts.” 7. Despite this, the State indicated that “[i]n this regard, two distinct spheres must be distinguished: the strictly administrative one, in the bilateral relationship between the State and the entity administered, and the disciplinary one, which derives from, and corresponds to, the relationship between the State and its public officials or servants.” Regarding the former, according to the State “nothing can be done, since no third parties are involved in this case that could be considered administered entities.” Thus, it is necessary to refer to the disciplinary sphere, specifically to paragraph 7 of article 239 of the Law No. 27444 on General Administrative Procedure with regard to “Administrative Offenses,” according to which, any official who “delays compliance with superior or administrative orders or contradicts their decisions” shall be sanctioned. However, Peru indicated that, “regarding administrative actions, it is no longer possible to conduct them because they have prescribed.” According to Peru, under article 173 of the Regulations of the Basic Law on the Civil Service and Public Sector Remuneration,5 “the action to file administrative [disciplinary, in this case,] proceedings had prescribed a long time before the [judgment] was delivered on February 28, 2003, because “almost 20 years” had passed since the alleged omissions of the officials concerned. Therefore, the State indicated that “pursuant to the law, it is not possible to file [an] action in this sphere of the law,” and insisted that, when the Court delivered the judgment, “only criminal proceedings were admissible.” 8. The representative indicated that “[t]he State has not taken any steps to investigate the facts of this case on its own initiative, rather than that of the victims. In fact, to the contrary, […] over a period of nine years (between 1995 and 2004), it systematically rejected the victims’ requests for investigations and sanctions, thus, ensuring impunity for those responsible for the arbitrary acts committed against them, as well as for those who failed to abide by the judgments of the courts ordering the restitution of their rights.” He added that “[n]ot only did it reject the complaints filed by the victims in the criminal sphere seeking the investigation of the said events, but, for the same reasons, it also failed to conduct any inquiry in the administrative disciplinary sphere.” In the representative’s opinion, the State, “shielded by its own actions, such as failing to investigate these facts promptly, […] now proposes total impunity for those responsible for them based on the norms in force regarding the prescription of administrative action.” According to the representative, “[t]he State is attempting to claim that the passage of time and, in its opinion, the absence of a clear and definitive ruling by the Court, should function in favor of the impunity of the acts that led to the violation of the victims’ rights.” 9. For its part, the Commission observed “that the State has not taken any measure to initiate, ex officio, a criminal or other type of investigation regarding the failure to comply with the judgments of the domestic courts.” In the Commission’s opinion, “the State’s actions have been limited to processing the complaints filed by the victims themselves.” Additionally, it indicated that, “to date, the State has not provided any specific information that would allow the Court to rule on whether the processing of the said complaints and the final decisions on them have complied with the provisions of the judgment” in this case. In addition, the Commission “observe[d] that the State referred to the mechanism of the prescription of administrative actions, without explaining the 5 According to Article 173 of Supreme Decree No. 005-90-PCM, Regulations of the Basic Law of the Civil Service and Public Sector Remuneration, “[t]he administrative disciplinary proceedings must be commenced no later than one year from the time the competent authority is aware of the commission of the disciplinary offense under the responsibility of the said authority. To the contrary, the action shall be declared to have prescribed, without prejudice to any civil or criminal proceedings that may be admissible” (file of monitoring compliance with judgment, tome V, folios 1272 and 1273). 3