the arrest of the persons investigated, on the grounds that the requirements of article 182 of the then-valid Code of Criminal Indictment were fulfilled. 23. Following that decision, the case was considered by the Second Court of the Transitory Procedural Regime of the same district, which on October 13, 2000 issued a ruling absolving Mr. Andrés José Castillo García, but convicting Mr. Gerardo Alcides Castillo Freites and sentencing him to 12 years in prison for the premeditated murder of the victim, while quashing the charges relating to the improper use of firearms. 24. As mentioned, this decision was appealed by the convicted officer's attorney, and the Court of Appeals of the Criminal Court Circuit of the State of Aragua upheld the conviction on April 25, 2002. That decision was appealed, and in a ruling of November 29, 2002 the Criminal Appeals Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice annulled the judgment of second instance, returning the case "to the State in which the Court of Appeals resolves the appeal". 25. On July 28, 2003, the petitioners report, the Court of Appeals of the Criminal Court Circuit of the State of Aragua was constituted to conduct a public hearing on the appeal. The Attorney General's office was not represented at that hearing. Following the hearing, on November 10, 2003, the court upheld the appeal and dismissed the charge of premeditated murder against Mr. Gerardo Alcides Castillo Freites. 26. That ruling was left to stand as the final one, as the Attorney General's office not only failed to uphold the rights of the victim’s relatives but abstained from filing an appeal, while the victim's family, who had neither the legal knowledge nor the money needed to hire a private lawyer, likewise filed no appeal. The petitioners declare that they learned of the final decision on December 22, 2003, on which date the Court of Appeals sent the file to the central archives of the Criminal Court Circuit of the State of Aragua, on the grounds that neither the Attorney General's office nor the victim's relatives had appealed the ruling. 27. The petitioners argue that persons of low social status have no access to effective justice, and that the entire system is vitiated by the lack of independence and impartiality reflected in the influence of certain political and economic groups that, through patterns of cronyism, enjoy impunity in the face of violations of the human rights of the poor, particularly when these involve acts committed by police officers, who enjoy the protection of both the investigative and the judicial bodies. 28. Finally, the petitioners argue that the death of Igmar Alexander Landaeta Mejías has gone unpunished because of the omissions of the Technical Corps of the Judicial Police, the Attorney General's Office, the Judiciary, and the Public Defender's Office, which failed to investigate the facts promptly and transparently. B. The State 29. The State indicates that the police journal for November 18, 1996 records that officers of the Technical Corps of the Judicial Police, Mariño section, "exchanged shots with a citizen known as Landaeta." 30. It confirmed the information provided by the petitioners on the course of criminal proceedings, culminating in the judgment of November 10, 2003 of the Accidental Chamber of the Court of Appeals, upholding the appeal of the conviction against one of the accused, and dismissing the charge of premeditated murder against that person. 31. The State argued that there were no grounds for resort to international bodies to enforce rights when no violation of those rights had been claimed during the corresponding proceedings. The international system, the State argued, cannot take upon itself "the function of administering impartial and adequate justice", which is an attribute of the State in the exercise of its sovereignty. In the case at hand, the plaintiffs were legally entitled to the assistance of an 4