Commission finds that the petitioners were prevented from accessing the domestic remedies during the period of armed conflict, since El Salvador did not have an independent judiciary during that period. Complaints of human rights were notoriously ineffective, especially considering the egregious nature of the violations committed in this case.13 At times, merely reporting the facts could prove dangerous to the person filing the report. Furthermore, the facts in this case occurred at a time when domestic legal remedies were dysfunctional, particularly petitions of habeas corpus.14 43. Even after the period of internal armed conflict was over, habeas corpuscontinued to be an ineffective remedy to seek investigations into forced disappearances, since the court authorities required that petitioners show proof of detention.15 The Commission finds that the cases of forced disappearance reported during this period did not lead to any clarification of the facts or to investigation and punishment of those responsible.16 The State itself admits that it was not until March 2002 that the Supreme Court changed its standard of jurisprudence. Whereas theretofore the Supreme Court had routinely denied protection in cases involving forced disappearance, in a March 20, 2002 ruling on a petition ofhabeas corpus brought in a case of forced disappearance, the Supreme Court acknowledged that the case involved a violation of the right to physical liberty, even though no evidence of arrest or detention was shown; it also recognized that petitions of habeas corpus can be filed to request investigations into forced disappearances.17 44. Following this change in the case law and after more than 20 years of impediments obstructing access to justice, on February 18 and 27, 2003 the disappeared boys’ next of kin filed petitions of habeas corpus; but in both cases, the courts denied the petitions in decisions delivered on March 6 and May 26, 2003. In the rulings, the court held that the next of kin The right to justice has also been deeply affected by the state of emergency that governs in El Salvador. The statement of the Commission in its previous Annual Report should be reiterated: The American Convention on Human Rights does not authorize suspension of the judicial guarantees necessary to protect fundamental rights, even less so when that suspension is in force for unduly long periods, as has happened in El Salvador. To this should be added the lack of independence and authority of its judiciary, against whose members criminal acts have also been practiced. The extreme restrictions on judicial guarantees have led, as stated earlier, to the failure to conclude of many trials, leading to a lack of confidence in the judicial system among the population. IACHR, Annual Report 1983-1984, Chapter IV “Situation of human rights in several states: El Salvador,” paragraph 6. 13 In the Annual Report it published at the end of El Salvador’s armed conflict, the IACHR recounted the situation that the country experienced during the previous twelve years. The Commission wrote that: El Salvador does not now enjoy --nor has it in the recent past-- the kind of efficient, impartial administration of justice that is the best safeguard against impunity and an effective deterrent against crime. Throughout the armed conflict, and once it was over, human rights organizations and experts of all leanings and origins concurred on this one point. IACHR, Annual Report 1992, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.83 Doc. 14, March 12, 1993, Chapter IV, “Situation of human rights in several states: El Salvador”, paragraph 10. Similarly, in 1984 the Inter-American Commission recommended to the State that “the Government should urgently proceed to reform the judiciary, in order to guarantee the punishment of those responsible for human rights violations.” IACHR, Annual Report 1983-1984, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.83 Doc. 14, March 12, 1993, Chapter IV, “Situation of human rights in several states: El Salvador,” OEA/Ser.L/V/II.63 Doc. 10, September 28, 1984, paragraph 15.e. 14 In describing what El Salvador experienced during its internal armed conflict, the Commission wrote that “the remedy of “amparo” or of habeas corpus were rendered null since the state of emergency indefinitely suspends such remedies.” IACHR, Annual Report 1983-1984, Chapter IV, paragraph 4. 15 See IACHR, Case 12,132 Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz, Report No. 31/01, in which the Commission declared the case admissible and applied the exception to the rule requiring exhaustion of domestic remedies, allowed under Article 46(2)(c) of the Convention, based on the fact that “As of the date this report was adopted, domestic remedies had not operated with the effectiveness required to investigate a complaint of forced disappearance” and indicated that “nearly eight years ha[d] passed since the first complaint was lodged with the authorities in El Salvador, with no definitive finding of how the events transpired.” See also Report No. 11/08, Admissibility, Emelinda Lorena Hernández, El Salvador, March 5, 2008, par. 36, and Report No. 10/08, Admissibility,Santos Ernesto Salinas, El Salvador, March 5, 2008, paragraph 26. 16 The Prosecutor for the Defense of Human Rights issued a report on forced disappearances. In the commentary on the issue of access to justice in the postwar period, the report reads as follows: Since the war’s end, there has been no appreciable change as regards victims’ complaints. The clearest evidence that Salvadoran justice has not worked for the victims is that not one of those responsible for these atrocities is behind bars and no disappeared detainee—or his/her remains—has been found. Prosecutor for the Defense of Human Rights in El Salvador, Special Report of the Prosecutor on the practice of forced disappearance of persons in the context of the armed internal conflict that occurred in El Salvador from 1980 to 1992, report of March 8, 2005. 17 Cf. Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court, March 20, 2002, in habeas corpus proceeding No. 379-2000, Ana Julia and Carmelina Mejía Ramírez. 8