Mejía Ramírez and José Rubén Rivera Rivera, as well as other related illegal
acts (second operative paragraph of the Judgment)
5.
The State advised that, following notification of the Judgment of the Court, it had
transmitted the decision contained in this operative paragraph to the Office of the
Prosecutor General, the entity responsible for investigating the facts, and that the said
Office had not reported the existence of recent results in relation to this case. Consequently,
the State did not have any information concerning specific results as regards the
investigation that would reflect a change in the situation of the proceedings that are
underway.
6.
The representatives expressed their concern because, despite the Court’s decision,
“not the slightest progress has been made in one of the most important measures ordered
by the Court.” In addition, they considered that it was essential that the prosecutors
responsible for the investigations forward a complete, detailed and updated report, as soon
as possible, which “should contain, as a minimum, details of the strategies and lines of
investigation that have been defined, as well as a description of all the measures taken to
date […], the pertinence of these measures, and also of those that are pending, and a
timetable for carrying out the latter as rapidly as possible.” Consequently, they asked the
Court to find that the State has failed to comply with this obligation totally, to continue
monitoring this measure, and to order the State to provide updated and detailed
information on the investigation of each of the cases.
7.
The Commission observed with concern that the State had not presented information
on this point. In this regard, it considered it relevant that the Court ask the State to
present, as soon as possible, complete, detailed and updated information on compliance
with this obligation, which means that it must provide information on: (a) the strategies and
lines of investigation followed in the criminal, administrative or any other type of
proceedings opened to determine all the masterminds and perpetrators of the forced
disappearances in this case, including State officials; (b) the investigations related to the
harm caused to Gregoria Herminia Contreras by facts such as her appropriation, the
alteration of her identity, ill-treatment and sexual abuse, and (c) the way in which it is
ensuring that full access and legal standing of the victims or their next of kin at all stages of
the different investigations and proceedings.
8.
The Court has previously established that the order to prosecute and eventually
punish the perpetrators and to discover the truth of the facts is one of the essential
decisions contained in the judgments of the Court, because it is intended to provide moral
satisfaction for the victims; it permits mentally overcoming the violations committed; it reestablishes social relations; it contributes to avoiding the repetition of the facts; it helps to
eliminate the power that the perpetrators could eventually exercise, and it signifies that
justice has been obtained with the application of the respective legal consequences,
punishing those who deserve it and providing reparation to those who merit it.6
9.
Accordingly, the Court notes with concern that the State merely advised that it had
no information relating to the specific results of investigations that would reflect a change in
the situation of the proceedings underway, because the Prosecutor General’s Office had not
reported the existence of recent results in relation to this case (supra considering paragraph
6
Cf. Case of Molina Theissen v. Guatemala. Monitoring compliance with judgment. Order of the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights of November 16, 2009, twentieth considering paragraph, and Case of the Serrano
Cruz Sisters v. El Salvador. Monitoring compliance with judgment. Order of the Inter-American Court of Human
Rights of February 3, 2010, sixteenth considering paragraph.
4