2 5. The petitioners presented their observations on the merits of the case on July 18, 2011. The State submitted its observations on February 1, 2012. On March 26, 2011, during its 144 th regular session, the IACHR held a hearing on the merits of the case. 6. The IACHR received additional communications from the petitioners on August 9, October 4, and November 4, 17 and 30, 2011; January 18, April 15 and October 12, 2012, and January 24, 2013. The IACHR received additional communications from the State on June 25, 2012, July 2, 2012 and January 14, 2013. Those communications were duly forwarded to the respective parties. III. THE PARTIES’ POSITIONS A The petitioners 7. The petitioners asserted that at time of the coup d’état on June 28, 2009, the judges of the “Asociación de Jueces por la Democracia” took measures or made statements in favor of restoring democratic order, triggering their arbitrary dismissal by the Supreme Court of Honduras (hereinafter “the SCJ”). According to the petitioners, this happened because the SCJ endorsed the de facto government and undertook a campaign of political persecution against those who spoke out against the coup. 8. An itemization of the facts and each of the judicial proceedings will be discussed in the Commission’s analysis of the facts, which is based on information supplied by both parties. In this section, the Commission is summarizing the main legal arguments made during the merits phase. 9. As for the facts that led to the disciplinary proceedings, the petitioners allege that the case of Tirza Flores Lanza, a magistrate on the Court of Appeals, involved a petition for a constitutional relief [amparo] that she filed on behalf of then President Manuel Zelaya Rosales, a subsequent petition seeking to have the proceedings on her petition of amparo nullified, and the complaint she filed with the Office of the Attorney General for a number of crimes committed by high-ranking public officials who participated in the coup d’état. The case of Adán Guillermo López Lone, a judge on San Pedro Sula’s First Sentencing Court, concerned his participation in a march against the interruption of constitutional order. He was participating in the march as a citizen. He had no political-partisan emblems or insignia on his person and his participation did not affect his functions as a judge. The march was put down by the armed forces and the judge was left with a fractured left leg. The case of Luis Chévez, a judge with the Anti-Domestic Violence Court in San Pedro Sula, happened because he was at a shopping center when a demonstration protesting the coup passed by. The petitioners stated that when the judge witnessed the repression, he identified himself as a judge and complained about the police authorities’ disproportionate use of force. Because of his remarks, he was arrested, in violation of the corresponding guarantees. The case of Ramón Barrios Maldonado, judge of the First Chamber of the San Pedro Sula Sentencing Court, involved an academic lecture he delivered in which he described what happened as a coup d’état. 10. The petitioners described the proceedings, stating that after an investigation was conducted in the Office of the Inspector General of Courts and Tribunals, the case file was sent to the Office of the Director of Personnel Management, which submitted a report to the SCJ proposing that the individuals be dismissed. The petitioners maintained that the Supreme Court delivered two decisions ordering dismissal and that the legal grounds for the judgments came out in a separate ruling of which