such as DINTE Maj. Gen. Juan Rivero Lazo or Head of Special Operations Col. Navarro Pérez Federico Augusto.1 25. The petitioner reports that on June 14, 1995, in predawn hours and unexpectedly, the ruling party bloc in Congress passed Law No. 26479, which granted amnesty to military, police, and civilian personnel involved in human rights violations committed between 1980 and the date of the law’s enactment. This legislation was enacted by the President of the Republic later that same day. 26. The petitioner claims that, according to Article 1 of this law, the amnesty covered all soldiers, police officers, and civil servants being charged, punished, tried, judged, or convicted for civilian or military crimes under either civilian or military law. Article 3 ordered the immediate release of all such persons under arrest, in detention, in prison, or facing jail terms. Article 6 ordered the permanent filing of all legal proceedings, regardless of whether they were still being processed or whether a sentence had already been handed down, and placed a ban on fresh investigations into the allegations of those proceedings. Law No. 26479, the amnesty law, was immediately applied by the Supreme Council of Military Justice, which on July 15, 1995, ordered the release of all the individuals convicted for the La Cantuta killings. 27. On June 28, 1995, the petitioner reports, the government’s congressional majority passed Law No. 26492, the poorly titled interpretation law of the amnesty law, with which it assumed powers belonging to other branches of government, interfered with the administration of justice, and expanded the grounds for amnesty. This second law declared that the amnesty law neither interfered with the functioning of the courts nor undermined the State’s obligation of respecting and guaranteeing full observance of human rights. Article 2 imposed a ban on judicial review, thus preventing those believing that their rights have been violated from seeking defense through the courts. The second law extended the amnesty to all soldiers, police officers, and civil servants, regardless of whether or not a complaint had been formally made. B. The State’s Position 28. On October 8, 1992, the State claimed it was waiting for information from the Ministry of Defense and the public prosecutor’s office, and told the Commission that the Ministry of Justice had stated that: . . . According to the report from the Office of the Attorney General with regard to the provisions of Article 5 of Law No. 25592, the complaints about the alleged disappearance of Hugo Muñoz Sánchez, Dora Oyague Fierro, and Juan Marinos Figueroa were recorded as events occurring in Lima on 18 July last; the Peruvian Army is suspected of being responsible and to date has been under investigation. The citizens Bertila Lozano Torres, Roberto Teodoro Espinoza, Marcelino Rosales Cárdenas, Felipe Flores Chipana, Luis Enrique Ortiz Perea, Armando Amaro Condor y Heráclides Pablo Meza do not appear in that report; consequently, my office has decided to serve notice on the Department of Public Prosecutions to keep it informed and for other issues of its competence. 29. On November 4, 1992, the State informed the Commission that the Ministry of Defense had reported, after concluding its investigations, that "the aforesaid citizens have in no way been detained or arrested by members of the military." The State added that according to the National Police, on July 18, 1992 no police operation had been carried out at La Cantuta National University, that a criminal court had declared groundless a habeas corpus suit brought on behalf of Dora Oyague Fierro, and that the Armed Forces Joint Command stated that a provincial prosecutor from Lima who conducted an on-site inspection of a hill near the aforesaid university found no human remains that would point to the commission of the crime under investigation. 1 Extract published in La República newspaper, Lima, May 7, 1993, p. 5. 5