VI-III RIGHT TO JUDICIAL PROTECTION (ARTICLE 25) IN RELATION TO ARTICLES 13, 1(1) AND 2 OF THE AMERICAN CONVENTION A. Arguments of the Commission and of the parties 231. The Commission indicated that, previously, in the case of the Saramaka People v. Suriname, the Inter-American Court had determined that the Suriname Civil Code, the 1982 LDecree, the 1986 Mining Decree, and the 1992 Forestry Management Act failed to provide appropriate and effective remedies that would protect the Saramaka tribal people from acts that violated their right to communal property. On this basis, taking into consideration that the State provided no information that would prove that it had adopted concrete measures to resolve the problems found in the Saramaka case, the Commission concluded that, in this case, the State had violated the right to judicial protection because no effective and appropriate remedy exists in the domestic law of Suriname that would guarantee the protection of the right to collective property of the indigenous and tribal peoples. 232. In addition, in its Merits Report, the Commission indicated that, following the Admissibility Report, the petitioners had alleged that the State’s failure to provide details regarding the precise dates when property titles and leases were issued to non-indigenous persons on part of the traditional territory of the Kaliña and Lokono peoples, without offering any reason to justify the refusal to make such public information available, contravened Article 13 of the American Convention. The Commission considered that what had occurred was part of the facts of the case, and concluded that, although it had insufficient evidence to declare the violation of Article 13 of the American Convention, it had analyzed this failure to provide information when examining the violation of the right to collective property of the Kaliña and Lokono peoples, recognized in Article 21 of the Convention. 233. The representatives agreed with the Commission’s affirmation that Suriname had still not created legal or administrative mechanisms to restitute or to recognize the property rights of the indigenous peoples, or to delimit, demarcate and grant title to their ancestral territories. In this regard, they added that the Kaliña and Lokono peoples had availed themselves of the right of petition recognized in Article 22 of the Surinamese Constitution, under which they had held meetings with authorities and filed complaints and petitions before different Ministries and State officials. However, they argued that the procedures were ineffective, because the State had not taken any concrete steps, in violation of the right to judicial protection. 234. Regarding the right of access to information, in the brief they submitted to the Commission on May 28, 2008, the representatives argued that the failure to provide the information requested constituted a violation of Article 13 of the American Convention. However, before the Court, they did not request the declaration that this article had been violated; rather they argued these facts in relation to violations of Articles 3, 21, and 25 of the American Convention, together with Articles 1 and 2 of this instrument, by the State of Suriname. 235. The State did not refer to the alleged violation of the right to judicial protection. However, during the visit made to the National Assembly as part of the on-site procedure, the National Assembly spokesperson indicated that the Decree Granting State-owned Land of June 15, 1982, known as the “L-Decree” recognized the rights of the indigenous peoples to some extent and that, in the practice, their right to collective property was acknowledged. 236. The State made no mention of the alleged violation of the right of access to information during the merits stage before the Commission and, during the on-site procedure, argued that access to public records was not denied in Suriname. 61