3 whereabouts of Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz have not been found, and those responsible have not been identified or punished.” The Commission filed the application in this case for the Court to decide whether the State had violated Articles 4 (Right to Life), 7 (Right to Personal Liberty), 18 (Right to a Name) and 19 (Rights of the Child) of the American Convention, in relation to Article 1(1) (Obligation to Respect Rights) thereof, to the detriment of Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz. The Commission also requested the Court to decide whether the State had violated Articles 5 (Right to Humane Treatment), 8 (Right to a Fair Trial), 17 (Rights of the Family) and 25 (Judicial Protection) of the Convention, in relation to Article 1(1) (Obligation to Respect Rights) thereof, to the detriment of Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz and of their next of kin. The Commission requested the Court to rule on the international responsibility of the State of El Salvador, for having incurred in a continuing violation of its international obligations “[the] effects [of which…] continue over time owing to the forced disappearance of the [alleged] victims on June 2, 1982, and, particularly, as of June 6, 1995, the date on which the State recognized the contentious jurisdiction of the Court.” III PROCEEDING BEFORE THE COMMISSION 3. On February 16, 1999, the Asociación Pro-Búsqueda de Niñas y Niños Desaparecidos [Association for the Search for Disappeared Children] (hereinafter “Asociación Pro-Búsqueda”) and the Center for Justice and International Law (hereinafter “CEJIL”) filed a petition before the Inter-American Commission for the alleged violation of Articles 5, 7, 8, 13, 17, 18, 19 and 25 of the American Convention, in relation to Article 1(1) thereof, to the detriment of Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz and their next of kin, owing to “[the] detention and disappearance on June 2, 1982 [of] the sisters, Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz, of 7 and 3 years of age, respectively, [when they were allegedly] captured by the El Salvador Armed Forces during an operation carried out by the Atlacatl Battalion against the municipality of San Antonio La Cruz, Department of Chalatenango.” The petitioners also indicated, inter alia, that “the State had not conducted a genuine investigation into the disappearance of Erlinda and Ernestina Serrano” and that, “despite the support provided by the [mother of the alleged victims to the criminal proceeding,] the case had been filed on March 16, 1998”. 4. On April 14, 1999, the Commission identified the petition as No. 12,132, forwarded the relevant parts of the petition to the State, and requested the latter to provide any information it deemed appropriate. 5. On February 25, 2000, the State submitted a communication affirming that this case was inadmissible, because it did not “comply with the requirement of the exhaustion of domestic remedies” and provided information on “Criminal Proceeding No. 112.93, being processed by the Chalatenango court of first instance [… concerning] the crime of the deprivation of liberty of the minors, Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano”. 6. On April 5, 2000, the petitioners presented comments on the communication of February 25, 2000 (supra para. 5), regarding the alleged failure to exhaust domestic remedies. They stated that “they ha[d] presented concrete proposals for channeling the investigation into other areas and these had duly been forwarded to the prosecutor responsible for the investigation,” because “the only measure taken in