29 114. By its very nature, the forced disappearance of persons seeks the juridical annulment of individuals in order to remove them from the protection that the laws and justice afford them. Thus, the apparatus of repression ensures that persons may be deprived of their rights with impunity by placing them beyond the reach of any possible judicial protection. The aim of those who perpetrate forced disappearance is to operate outside the law and conceal any evidence of crime, thereby seeking to avert its investigation and punishment, and prevent the person or their next-of-kin from filing suit or, in the event 142 suit is filed, from accomplishing a positive result. 115. The Human Rights Committee has established that one of the rights that may be violated 143 in forced disappearance cases is the right to juridical personality. Similarly, Article 7.2.i of the 1998 Rome Statute states that forced disappearance of persons means “the arrest, detention or abduction of persons by, or with the authorization, support or acquiescence of, a State or a political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge that deprivation of freedom or to give information on the fate or whereabouts of those persons, with the intention of removing them from the protection of the law for a prolonged period of time.” 116. Likewise, the definition set out in Article II of the 2006 International Convention for the 144 Protection of All People from Enforced Disappearance establishes that refusals to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or whereabouts of a person, along with other elements involved in disappearances, “places such a person outside the protection of the law.” Equally, the United Nations independent expert on the enforced or involuntary disappearance of persons has said that forced disappearances can entail a violation of the right to recognition as a person before the law, on account of the fact that the victim is 145 intentionally removed from the protection of the law. 117. Repeatedly, the precedents set by the IACHR have held that persons who are detained and disappeared are “excluded from the legal and institutional framework of the State, which constitute[s] the negation of their very existence as human beings recognized as persons before the law,” and as a 146 result, it has declared the violation of Article 3 of the Convention. In the case of Anzualdo Castro, the Inter-American Court embraced the reasoning historically used by the Commission, by the European Court, and by the quasi-judicial agencies of the universal human rights system, by recognizing that forced 147 disappearance implies the suppression of the right to juridical personality. 118. According to the facts established in the case at hand, Mr. Jeremías Osorio Rivera was the victim of a forced disappearance committed by elements from the Cajatambo Countersubversive Base who arrested him in the community of Nunumia, Gorgor district, Cajatambo province, on April 28, 1991. At the same time, and as will be described in the following section, the judicial authorities who dealt with the complaints lodged by the victim’s next-of-kin failed to conduct a diligent and timely investigation 142 IACHR, Application to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the case of Gregoria Herminia Contreras and others v. the Republic of El Salvador, Cases 12.494, 12.517, and 12.518, June 28, 2010, para. 175, available at www.cidh.oas.org/demandas/demandasESP2010.htm. 143 Human Rights Committee of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Communication 1327/04, Grioua v. Algeria, paras. 7.8 and 7.9. 144 Adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in resolution A/RES/61/177 of December 20, 2006. 145 United Nations, Report submitted by Mr. Manfred Nowak, independent expert charged with examining the existing international criminal and human rights framework for the protection of persons from enforced or involuntary disappearances, pursuant to paragraph 11 of Commission resolution 2001/46, E/CN.4/2002/71 of January 8, 2002, para. 70. 146 IACHR, Report No. 11/98, Case 10.606, Merits, Samuel de la Cruz Gómez, Guatemala, April 7, 1998, para. 57, available at www.cidh.oas.org/annualrep/97span/Guatemala10.606.htm. IACHR, Report No. 55/99, Merits, Case 10.815 and others, Juan de la Cruz Núñez Santana and others, Peru, April 13, 1999, para. 111, available at www.cidh.oas.org/annualrep/98span/Fondo/Peru%2010.815.htm. IACHR, Report No. 3/98, Case 11.221, Merits, Tarcisio Medina Charry, Colombia, April 7, 1998, para. 64, available at www.cidh.oas.org/annualrep/97span/Colombia11.221.htm. IACHR Report No.30/96, Case 10.897, Merits, Arnoldo Juventino Cruz, Guatemala, October 16, 1996, para. 23, and Report No. 55/96, Case 8076, Merits, Axel Raúl Lemus García, Guatemala, December 6, 1996, para. 24, available at www.cidh.oas.org/casos/96sp.htm. 147 para. 90. I/A Court H. R., Case of Anzualdo Castro v. Peru, Judgment of September 22, 2009, Series C No. 202,