of liberty that specifically permitted a review of the lawfulness of a deprivation of liberty. Messrs. Villarroel Merino, Coloma Gaibor, Vinueza Pánchez, López Ortiz and Ascázubi Albán filed a joint application for protection of liberty and Mr. Cevallos Moreno filed another application for amparo, individually; both applications were rejected. The Court will now examine the said remedies to determine whether they constituted appropriate and effective remedies to obtain a prompt decision on the lawfulness of the detention of the presumed victims. 112. As this Court has noted, the NPCJ decisions which denied the remedies filed did not mention the grounds that substantiated the remedies and did not make any ruling in this regard. When deciding the remedy filed by Messrs. Villarroel Merino, Coloma Gaibor, Vinueza Pánchez, López Ortiz and Ascázubi Albán, the NPCJ merely indicated that “given the stage of the case, it is inadmissible, as decided by the court in a similar case filed previously by another of the accused in these proceedings.” This reveals that the NPCJ did not duly found the decision and did not rule on whether or not the detention was lawful, or on the continuation of the measure. Nor did it schedule a hearing for the officers to be brought before the court pursuant to article 425 of the common CCP.130 Therefore, in this case, the application for amparo did not permit a real control of the liberty of the presumed victims, because it did not examine the lawfulness of the detención en firme, a matter that was debated before that court; nor did it rule expressly on the continuation of the measure. 113. In addition, in the remedy filed by Mr. Cevallos Moreno, even though the decision contains an account of the appellant’s arguments, once again the NPCJ merely indicated the following: “since this is the stage of the case and without it being necessary to make any other analysis and especially to examine evidence provided during the corresponding hearing, the court considers that the application for protection of liberty […] is inadmissible and, consequently, it is denied.” In that case also, the NPCJ failed to rule on the merits of the matter concerning whether the detention was lawful, or about the continuation of the measure. 114. Based on the above, this Court considers that, in the instant case, the applications for protection of liberty that were filed were neither appropriate nor effective, because they did not achieve the purpose of obtaining a prompt decision on the lawfulness of the detention. This was because the NPCJ did not conduct a control of the lawfulness of the detention or order their release, on the grounds that a ruling in this regard could signify advancing an opinion on the main issue of the case relating to the remedies of nullity and appeal previously filed by the presumed victims against the decision of May 26, 2003. 115. In the instant case, as the Court has not been advised of the date on which the applications for protection of liberty were filed, it will not rule on the time taken by the NPCJ to decide the remedies in order to determine whether this conformed to the expression “without delay” in Article 7(6) of the Convention. 116. Based on the above, the Court finds that the State violated the right to personal liberty recognized in Articles 7(1) and 7(6) of the American Convention, in relation to Article 1(1) of this instrument, to the detriment of Messrs. Villarroel Merino, Cevallos Moreno, Coloma Gaibor, Vinueza Pánchez, López Ortiz and Ascázubi Albán. Merino, Coloma Gaibor, Vinueza Pánchez, López Ortiz and Ascázubi Albán, and the other by Mr. Cevallos Moreno, both of which were declared inadmissible by the National Police Court of Justice on July 3, 2003. Article 425 of the Code of Criminal Procedure indicates that: “When a person is deprived of his liberty, the judge or court of criminal guarantees shall immediately order that the detainee be brought before him. If necessary, the measure may be conducted in the place of his deprivation of liberty. In addition, the judge must call for a hearing, which must be held within the following twelve hours so that, in the presence of the detainee, the authority concerned may present a report. The judge or court of criminal guarantees may order that evidence be submitted during the hearing […].” 2000 Code of Criminal Procedure, published in the Supplement to Official Record 360 of January 13, 2000, supra. 130 30