68. The State has argued that the Commission must declare this case inadmissible, because it previously addressed the allegations regarding the political persecution carried out against members of the Patriotic Union. The Commission discussed the information it had received regarding the systematic assassinations carried out against the Patriotic Union in its Second Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Colombia.35 69. Neither the Convention nor the Regulations of the Commission require that the Commission declare the inadmissibility of a case where the subject of the case has previously been addressed in a general report. In fact, Article 19(2)(b) of the Regulations of the Commission specifically provides, in relevant part, that members of the Commission may not discuss or decide a matter submitted to the Commission only "if previously they have participated in any capacity in a decision concerning the same facts" (emphasis added). The discussion of specific facts in a general country report does not constitute a "decision" on those facts as would a final report on an individual petition which denounced the same or similar facts. 70. Article 41 of the Convention grants the Commission the power: c. to prepare such studies or reports as it considers advisable in the performance of its duties; f. to take action on petitions and other communications pursuant to its authority under the provisions of Articles 44 through 51 of this Convention. These two powers of the Commission are granted and implemented independently. The Commission's invocation of one of these powers should not and does not preclude the use of the other. 71. The State appears to suggest that the Commission improperly included the information regarding the Patriotic Union in the Second Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Colombia, because the Commission did not follow the procedure for individual petitions set forth in the Convention and in the Regulations of the Commission.36 Because the Commission's competence to prepare general reports is independent from its power to process individual petitions, the procedures for the processing of individual petitions need not be applied in the preparation of general reports. In any case, the existence of a procedural flaw in regards to the preparation of the general report would affect only the validity of that report. It would not affect the admissibility of the present case under the individual petition system. 72. The processing of a case pursuant to the individual petition procedure is more structured than the preparation of a general report, which serves an informative rather than adjudicatory purpose. In processing an individual petition, the Commission must follow the procedures set forth in Articles 44 through 51 of the Convention. The Commission must engage in a careful analysis of the case so that it may reach conclusions of fact and law, pursuant to Articles 50 and 51 of the Convention. 73. Thus, the Commission set forth general conclusions in the Second Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Colombia in relation to the information it received regarding the Patriotic Union. Independently and pursuant to the individual petition system, it carefully considered the relevant questions of law and evidence presented in order to prepare this admissibility report. As a result, the conclusions of the Commission in this report differ slightly from the general information presented in the Second Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Colombia. For example, the Commission suggested in the general report on Colombia that the information it received indicated that genocide was being carried out against the Patriotic Union. Upon legal analysis, the Commission has concluded that the information it has received in the context of the individual petition process does not tend to establish the crime of genocide, as a matter of law. It therefore cannot be said that the information relating to the Patriotic Union included in the general country report constituted a prejudgment with regard to the decisions to be taken by the Commission in the case pursuant to the individual petition process. 35 Second Report on Colombia at 162. 36 See Government Response of June 3, 1994. 11