5 peace (...) the Chapultepec peace accords, and (...) the various international human rights instruments ratified by the State of El Salvador”. During the internal armed conflict, it claims, “the State protected and provided assistance as far as possible, through its institutions, to the civilian victims of the armed confrontations, seeing to their physical, mental and moral integrity, as well as the use and enjoyment of their property, providing the required humanitarian aid, without any discrimination”. 23. As to the rights to a fair trial and judicial protection, the State points out that the events took place in the context of an internal armed conflict and that the victims turned to the judicial system only on October 26, 1999, when Pedro Chicas Romero filed a complaint before the Second Court of First Instance of San Francisco Gotera. Despite the difficult working conditions caused by the violence of the time, the responsible judge conducted the appropriate initial investigations. The delay in taking criminal action impeded the investigations, the collection of evidence, the location and summoning of witnesses, and the taking of expert testimony, “making the case more complex for reasons that had nothing to do with the authorities involved”. According to the State, “under the 1973 code of criminal procedure, not only did the judge have the power to initiate proceedings but any person could use the ‘notification’ procedure to report a crime to the police or to the public prosecutor’s office.” 24. Once the investigation was opened, the State maintains, the judicial authority for criminal case 238-90 conducted investigations by taking “multiple testimony, perhaps not all that the petitioners would have wished (...), but this did not bespeak malice or negligence on the part of the judge, but represented what he considered appropriate at the time”. In addition to taking testimony, the State conducted inspections and exhumations at three sites in the village of El Mozote, from October 1992 to January 1993, with the investigative means available to it at the time. The judge also requested the President of the Republic to provide information on the military operations that took place in the zone in December 1981, and on the persons belonging to the units that carried them out. Despite this, claims the State, because of the time that had elapsed the corresponding records could not be found. Given the circumstances of the armed conflict, the investigations were conducted within a normal timeframe. 25. The State claims that the judicial effort was impeded not only by the prevailing violence 6 but also by the lack of funds and the fact that the judges were working under fear of execution by the guerrillas. Moreover, the court had a heavy workload, being responsible not only for criminal cases but also for those relating, for example, to civil, family, commercial and labor law 26. The State referred to the alleged statement by the examining judge to the effect that he was being pressured by senior State officials, noting that such statements could not be confirmed because the judge had died. The State therefore requested that any reference in this respect must be weighed in light of that fact. 27. The State argues that in a country governed by the rule of law, as is the Republic of El Salvador, the branches of government enjoy full independence. Article 172 of the Constitution provides that “magistrates and judges, in the exercise of their jurisdictional function, are independent and subject solely to the Constitution and the laws.” In this case no irregularities could be claimed, as the judicial authority had acted in accordance with the law, with full transparency and with active participation by the public prosecutor, the victims and their representatives. 28. The State emphasizes that the file on the case contained 10 documents and more than 2,000 pages, recording all the judicial action taken and demonstrating the determination to process the complaint and clarify the facts. Although the case was closed definitively, after 1994 the examining judge took many actions at the request of the relatives and also at his own initiative, to arrange the exhumations and identification of persons who had died during the massacre, and to deliver their remains to their families. Despite those efforts, to date the perpetrators of the massacre had not been identified because 6 The State said that during the years of the conflict, “most of the budget was devoted to defending the country and to rebuilding bridges, highways, access roads, electricity towers, protecting dams which on various occasions had been attacked and destroyed by the guerrillas, and consequently the judiciary had only a minimal portion of the national budget and its resources were very limited”.