REPORT No. 13/15 CASE 12.349 ADMISSIBILITY AND MERITS MAYRA ANGELINA GUTIÉRREZ HERNÁNDEZ Y FAMILIA GUATEMALA MARCH 23, 2015 I. SUMMARY 1. On October 30, 2000, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter the “Commission,” the “Inter-American Commission,” or the “IACHR”) received a petition lodged by Nilda Gutiérrez Hernández, Ángela María del Carmen Argüello Gutiérrez, and Greta Mancilla Chavarría, which claimed that the Republic of Guatemala (hereinafter the “State,” the “Guatemalan State,” or Guatemala) bore international responsibility for the alleged forced disappearance of Mayra Angelina Gutiérrez Hernández on April 7, 2000, as well as the alleged lack of an investigation to determine her whereabouts and punish those responsible. Subsequently, Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM) became a petitioner. 2. According to the petitioners, Ms. Gutiérrez was forcibly disappeared on April 7, 2000. They claim that state agents committed the deed on the basis of: (i) Ms. Gutiérrez’s links to the San Carlos University in Guatemala; (ii) her work in the area of gender and illegal adoptions; (iii) her former membership of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR); and (iv) the fact that two of her siblings were disappeared during the armed conflict in Guatemala. They also said that the crime has been allowed to remain in impunity given that no one has been punished for the deeds and Ms. Gutiérrez’s whereabouts are still not known. With respects to admissibility requirements, they invoked the unwarranted delay exception established in Article 46.2.c of the American Convention. 3. The State contended that the petition was inadmissible on the ground that the criminal proceedings connected with Mayra Angelina Gutiérrez’s disappearance remains ongoing. As to merits, it maintained that it has not been demonstrated that state agents had a hand in her disappearance. It said that despite multiple steps taken both in the criminal proceeding and through writs of habeas corpus, it had not been possible to establish her whereabouts. The State added that there was an outstanding warrant in the context of the criminal proceeding for the arrest of an alleged culprit in the deeds, namely Ms. Gutiérrez’s former domestic partner. 4. After analyzing the information available, the Commission determined that the admissibility requirements set forth in Articles 46 and 47 of the American Convention had been met, and concluded that the State was responsible for violation of the rights to life, humane treatment, a fair trial, equal protection, and judicial protection recognized at Articles 4, 5, 8, 24, and 25 of the American Convention taken in conjunction with the obligations enshrined in Article 1 (1) of that instrument, to the detriment of the persons named in each section of this report. The Commission also found that the State was responsible for violation of the duty to investigate recognized in article I(b) of the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons. II. PROCESSING BY THE COMMISSION 5. Nilda Gutiérrez Hernández, Ángela María del Carmen Argüello Gutiérrez, and Greta Mancilla Chavarría denounced the alleged facts in this case in a communication received by the Commission on October 30, 2000. On December 6, 2000, the IACHR advised the family and Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM) that processing of their petition had commenced and that the case had been assigned number 12.349. The State submitted its response on June 13, 2001. The petitioners subsequently submitted comments on August 27, 2001. 6. On October 30, 2006, the Commission informed the State of Guatemala and the petitioners that it had decided to invoke Article 37.3 of its Rules of Procedure then in force and defer its treatment of 1

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