27. Furthermore, the Court declared that the guarantee of being judged by a competent judge had been violated, based on the fact that the Decree Law No. 25.659 (crime of treason) and Decree Law No. 25.475 (crime of terrorism) divided jurisdiction between the military and the ordinary [civil] courts and attributed consideration of the crime of treason to the former and of terrorism to the latter. Consequently, the Court emphasized that the classification of an act as treason meant that individuals would be heard by a “faceless” military court, that the accused would be tried by abbreviated preliminary proceedings, with reduced guarantees, and that they would be sentenced to life imprisonment (article 4 of Decree Law No. 25.659 and article 15 of Decree Law No. 25.475). 28. The Court added that the military courts that tried the victims did not satisfy the requirements of independence and impartiality. Also, the fact that the judges who intervened in the proceedings for the crimes of treason were “faceless” meant that the accused would not know the identity of the judge, and thus assess the judge’s competence. This situation was aggravated by the fact that the law prohibited the recusal of the judges. The Court underscores that, in the case of Mr. Astorga Valdez, he was convicted without right of appeal, based on new evidence that the defense counsel was unaware of and could not challenge. 29. Furthermore, the Court found that the restriction of the work of the defense counsel and the limited possibility of presenting evidence for the defense had been proven. The accused were not fully and opportunely advised of the charges against them; the conditions under which the defense counsel acted were totally inadequate for effective action, and they only had access to the file the day before the judgment at the first instance was delivered. The Court considered that the laws applied in the case made it impossible to question the witnesses on whose testimony the charges against the alleged victims were based. On the one hand, questioning members of either the police or the army who had allegedly taken part in the investigations was prohibited. On the other, the absence of an intervention by the defense counsel up until the time the accused was called to declare meant that the former could not contest the evidence gathered and entered in the police attestation. In addition, the Court indicated that the right to appeal the judgment was denied because the court that heard the appeals that were filed formed part of the military structure and because the victims were unable to file remedies before the ordinary [civil] jurisdiction for the latter to review the proceedings under the military jurisdiction. 30. Lastly, the Court emphasized that the proceedings were conducted on military premises, to which the public did not have access. All the procedures took place in these circumstances of isolation and secrecy, including the hearing itself, aspects that gave rise to a violation of the right to the public nature of the proceedings. 31. Having established the foregoing, the Court will now analyze the information regarding the new trial against the victims. i) Arguments and information forwarded by the parties 32. The State advised that a special appeal for review had been filed before the Supreme Council of Military Justice, “for this body to annul its decision of June 11, 1999, [which declared ‘non-executable’ the judgment of the Inter-American Court], and to annul the proceedings in the criminal action for the crime of treason against the four Chilean citizens […] and, consequently, that it inhibit itself from hearing this appeal and forward it to the competent ordinary criminal judge so that a new criminal trial could be conducted, with full guarantees.” Accordingly, on May 14, 2001, the Plenary Chamber of the Supreme Council of Military Justice “decreed the annulment of the proceedings […] before military justice against Castillo Petruzzi et al., and the criminal action against them was taken up by the ordinary [civil] justice. [T]he case files were forwarded to the 9