occurred […] within [the restricted period].” Regarding the material competence, it indicated that “the Court’s competence should only extend to the claims made by the Commission and the presumed victims.” It also asserted that, when admitting the case, the Commission had indicated that the petitioners at the time had “question[ed], above all, the lack of access to civil redress”; that “the purpose of these proceedings is to determine whether, in this specific case, there has been a violation of the obligation to provide reparation,” and that the representatives “address a series of issues that exceed the sphere of competence ratione materiae” of the Court. It added that “the purpose of this case is to examine and decide on the presumed violation of rights of Leopoldo García and his family […], owing to the State’s presumed failure to comply with its obligation to investigate and to provide reparation.” On this basis, as the only “specific petition” concerning the preliminary objection, the State asked that, “before examining the merits,” the Court to declare that “the actual grounds for the right to reparation that had apparently been violated originated in events that had occurred prior to the ratification of the Convention.” 18. The Inter-American Commission clarified that it was not asking the Court to rule on the torture suffered by Mr. García Lucero. To support its position it cited various interAmerican treaties, decisions of the Court and of other international organs, in order to affirm that the Court has competence to rule on the insufficiency of the measures of reparation that were established since its competence was accepted, and that “the denial of justice […] has continued from March 11, 1990, to the present.” In this regard, it understood that the “obligations to investigate and to provide reparation were obligations of an autonomous and continuing nature.” 19. It also mentioned some facts that occurred after that date, namely: (a) steps taken by Mr. García Lucero “after 1993”; (b) the forwarding to the State, on November 23, 2004, of the petition concerning this case that had been presented to the Commission; (c) the publication of the report of the National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture (hereinafter also “the Valech Commission”) on November 28, 2004; (d) the alleged failure to investigate the facts until October 7, 2011, and the opening of the investigation on that date; (e) the continuation in force of Decree Law No. 2,191; (g) the pension awarded to Mr. García Lucero since 2000, and (h) the reception of bonus payments (bonos) by Mr. García Lucero on June 14, 2006, and in 2008. In relation to the State’s arguments regarding the Court’s supposed lack of material competence, the Commission indicated that “it is difficult to understand [its] implications,” because “the State recognizes that the facts that are the subject of the litis are those established by the Commission and the representatives.” 20. The representatives argued that Chile had only filed the preliminary objection in relation to “one of the alleged violations, that of the right to adequate and integral reparation” under the Convention, and not: In relation to the violation of the procedural element of the right to humane treatment (Article 5(1) [of the Convention]) as a result of the inaction of the State and of the system of justice. Also, Chile has not referred to the alleged violation of the general obligation […] to adapt its domestic law to the Convention (Article 2), or to the applicable provisions of the InterAmerican Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture. 21. They also stated that “the rights of access to justice are autonomous in nature, which means that the State must investigate and provide reparation for torture, even when [this] was committed before the Convention was ratified.” They added that, according to the Court’s case law, the Court retains its competence with regard to facts that began to be executed following the acceptance of this competence. In this regard, they indicated that: The […] Court should reach the same conclusions it reached in [the judgments in the cases] of Almonacid Arellano, the Serrano Cruz Sisters, and Martín del Campo; in other words, that the 9