16 proceeding had resulted in a denial of justice, arguing that the proceedings in the Seventh Court of the Criminal District of Managua, the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Justice had been conducted in conformity with the rules in force in Nicaragua. The duration of the police investigation and the judicial proceeding were in keeping with the complexity of the case, the numerous pieces of evidence collected, the vast number of testifying witnesses, and the petitions filed by the parties to the case. The Government maintained that the Commission's claim that the fact that the case has lasted four years signified a denial of justice was unacceptable, that period being normal for criminal cases in Nicaragua. 57. According to the Government, the fact that the civil courts had declared themselves incompetent to hear a case that falls within the purview of the military courts does not imply any denial of justice, this situation having been discussed in the appeal and review before the Supreme Court of Justice, because, according to the Nicaraguan Constitution and its Code of Criminal Investigation, the trial should take place before a competent judge and pursuant to the procedures and formalities established in the law. 58. The Government states that the Commission's claim that normative provisions that run counter to the object and purpose of the Convention were applied to the detriment of the interested party is untenable, since the proceeding established in Decrees 591 and 600 on military justice does not disregard the suspects' right to a fair trial; in a word, all evidence is allowed and challenge procedures established, so that those provisions do not violate the right to equal protection and to a fair trial as set forth in the Articles 8, 25 and 24 of the Convention. VI 59. At the hearing before the Court, witness Raymond Genie-Peñalba, father of the victim, explained at length all the representations made to the various administrative, police, judicial and military authorities in his inquiries into the death of young Genie-Lacayo. He made particular mention of some problems he had encountered throughout the process and of the effect that certain actions on the part of the Nicaraguan authorities, especially the military -such as obstruction of visits to the Military Unit involved, destruction of some records, disposal of weapons and vehicles probably used in the crime, and the absence of some witnesses- had had on the case. He gave a full account of the raison d'être of certain remedies applied by the plaintiff and how they were disposed of or left pending. 60. Witness Hernaldo Zúñiga-Montenegro, a Member of the Nicaraguan National Assembly and President of the Special Legislative Commission created within that collegiate body to investigate the death of young Genie-Lacayo, made special reference to the request to the Government of Venezuela for the dispatch of experts to deliver a forensic report on the events, a copy of which was sent to the tribunal hearing the case at its express request and which he understood to have been attached to the file. 61. Assistant Attorney-General María Alicia Duarte-Bojorge informed the Court of the role played by the Office of the Attorney-General in such cases, furnishing a detailed account of her own work in this particular case. She told how, despite her request, the weapons allegedly used in the crime, the logs of the arrival and departure of military vehicles, of weapons and other monitoring logs and the vehicles themselves could not be inspected by the judge. In her view, the military authorities clearly obstructed the progress of the case and caused delays by impeding the procurement of evidence. 62. Witness Sidney Lacayo-Guerra, Chief of Army Special Military Unit 003 responsible for General Humberto Ortega's security, said that the Unit kept detailed records of