9 Azucena Mejía, representative of the Asociación Pro-Búsqueda Sandra Lobo, representative of the Asociación Pro-Búsqueda, and Norma Verónica Ardón, representative of the Asociación Pro-Búsqueda. Witnesses proposed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and by the representatives of the alleged victims and their next of kin: Suyapa Serrano Cruz; María Elsy Dubón de Santamaría, and Juan María Raimundo Cortina Garaícorta. Witnesses proposed by the State of El Salvador: Ida María Gropp de García; Jorge Alberto Orellana Osorio; María Esperanza Franco Orellana de Miranda, and Miguel Uvence Argueta Umaña. 39. On September 9, 2004, in response to the Court’s request during the public hearing on preliminary objections and merits, reparation, and costs (supra para. 38), the representatives of the alleged victims and their next of kin forwarded a copy of Legislative Decree No. 486, “Law of General Amnesty to Consolidate the Peace,” issued on March 20, 1993, and of judgment No. 24-97/21-98, issued by the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador on September 26, 2000. 40. On September 10, 2004, the Ombudsman of El Salvador submitted a brief, attaching a copy of the “Informe de la Señora Procuradora para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos sobre las desapariciones forzadas de las niñas Ernestina y Erlinda Serrano Cruz, su impunidad actual y el patrón de la violencia en que ocurrieron tales desapariciones” [The Ombudsman’s report on the forced disappearance of Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz, the current impunity and the context of violence in which this disappearance occurred], issued on September 2, 2004. The representatives also presented a copy of this report on September 6, 2004. 41. On September 16, 2004, José Benjamín Cuéllar Martínez, Pedro José Cruz Rodríguez and Roberto Burgos Viale presented an amici curiae brief. 42. On September 28, 2004, on the instructions of the President of the Court and in accordance with Article 45(2) of the Court’s Rules of Procedure, the Secretariat requested the State to collaborate by forwarding the following documents to the Court, by October 18, 2004, at the latest: (a) copy of folios 424 to 437 of the file of the criminal proceeding before the Chalatenango Court of First Instance, “Case No. 112/93” “for the abduction of the minors: Ernestina Serrano and Herlinda Serrano”; and (b) all the documentation related to the declaration of recognition of the contentious jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court made by El Salvador in 1995, including the documentation on any discussion that might have arisen in this regard in the Legislative Assembly or any other State body responsible for proposing, drafting and adopting this declaration of recognition. 43. On October 7, 2004, the State submitted its final written arguments on preliminary objections and merits, reparation, and costs, with several appendixes. El Salvador also forwarded some of the documents that the President of the Court had