41 and Dignidad Humana,132 the Comisión Mexicana de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos A.C,133 and several amici curiai submitted to the Court.134 143. In light of the preceding paragraphs, in the instant case the Court will use the expression “gender-based murders of women,” also known as femicide. 144. In the instant case, the Tribunal finds that, bearing in mind the evidence and the arguments about the evidence in the case file, it is not necessary or possible to make a final ruling on which murders of women in Ciudad Juárez constitute genderbased murders of women, other than the murders of the three victims in this case. Consequently, it will refer to the Ciudad Juárez cases as murders of women, even though it understands that some or many of them may have been committed for reasons of gender and that most of them took place within a context of violence against women. 145. Regarding the deaths that occurred in the instant case, in the following sections the Tribunal will analyze whether, based on the evidence provided by the parties, they constitute gender-based murders of women. 1.7. Investigation into the murders of women 146. According to the Commission and the representatives, another factor that characterizes these murders of women is the failure to clarify them and the irregularities in the respective investigations which, they consider, have given rise to a climate of impunity. In this regard, the Tribunal takes note of the State’s acknowledgement of “the commission of several irregularities in the investigation and processing of the murders of women perpetrated between 1993 and 2004 in Ciudad Juárez.” The State also regretted “the mistakes committed up until 2004 by public servants who took part in some of these investigations.” 1.7.1. Irregularities in the investigations and in the proceedings 147. Even though the State acknowledged that irregularities had been committed in the investigation and prosecution of the murders of women between 1993 and 2003 (supra para. 20), it did not specify the irregularities it had found in the investigations and the proceedings conducted over those years. However, the Court notes the observations of the IACHR Rapporteur in this regard: The Mexican State, for its part, recognizes that mistakes were made during the first five years that it was confronted with these killings. It acknowledges, for example, that it was not uncommon for the police to tell a family member attempting to report a girl missing that they should return in 48 hours, when it was clear there might be something to investigate. Both State and non-state representatives indicated that the authorities in Ciudad Juárez would often dismiss initial complaints by saying the victim was out with a boyfriend and would soon return home. The PGJE [Office of the Attorney General of the state of 132 Cf. Centro para el Desarrollo Integral de la Mujer and AC/Red Ciudadana de No violencia y Dignidad Humana. Las Víctimas de Feminicidio en Ciudad Juárez. Informe del Estado de la Procuración de Justicia y el Acceso a las Garantías Judiciales sobre feminicidios y mujeres desaparecidas en Juárez, 1993–2007. Report to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, May 2007 (case file of attachments to the application, volume IV, appendix 5 Vol. III, folios 544 and 555). 133 Cf. Comisión Mexicana de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos A.C, Compendio de recomendaciones, supra note 65, folio 6654. 134 Cf. Brief presented by the Global Justice and Human Rights Program of the Universidad de los Andes, Colombia (merits case file, volume XV, folio 4416); brief presented by the World Organization against Torture and TRIAL–Track Impunity (merits case file, volume VI, folio 2197), and brief presented by the Red Mesa de Mujeres de Ciudad Juárez (merits case file, volume XV, folio 4290).

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