petitioners also allege that government officials hindered the investigation by obstructing the appointment of qualified forensic specialists to identify the remains. According to the petitioners, the Legal Medicine Institute has never had properly qualified staff to do this work; consequently, the Legal Aid Office of the Office of the Archbishop looked into the availability of international experts. The judge, according to the petition, raised many obstacles to hiring them. This behavior is said to have been ordered by the President of the Supreme Court of Justice according to the findings of the Report by the Truth Commission. 4 18. On March 15, 1993, the Truth Commission of El Salvador submitted its final report to the United Nations Secretary General. It included the massacre at El Mozote to illustrate the massacres of peasants carried out by the Salvadoran military. The Truth Commission concluded that the facts had been fully established, as had the perpetrators and military personnel responsible, including high-ranking officers that the Commission identified by name and rank. 5 19. On September 4, 1994, the judge issued a final dismissal of the case on the basis of the General Amnesty Law for Consolidation of Peace. He dismissed charges against any member of the Salvadoran military who had taken part in the events at El Mozote. The petitioners allege that the families of the victims were not properly notified of that ruling and therefore had no chance to appeal. In early 2000, the Legal Aid Office of the Office of the Archbishop, acting as legal representative of the families of the victims, won a resumption of the exhumation work to recover remains and deliver them to the families, because the General Amnesty Law prevents continuation of criminal proceedings. The petitioners say that this exhumation work made it possible to recover the remains of 37 persons; exhumations in 2001 yielded 22 skeletons. B. Position of the State 20. Throughout the international proceedings the State contended that, from the very moment the events were reported, government officials had at all times diligently pressed ahead with the procedures set in motion to resolve the case. External circumstances, however, have made it impossible to identify the persons involved in the events. 21. The State maintained that the events occurred presumably between December 8 and 16, 1981, but there is no record of any family member or injured party reporting the events to the police or the courts. Consequently, it was only on October 26, 1990, when the complaint was filed, that an investigation and criminal proceedings were opened by the judge of the Second Court in the lower courts. According to the State, those criminal proceedings were conducted with full transparency; the Office of the Prosecutor General of the Republic, the victims and their legal advisers actively participated in them. 22. Nevertheless, according to the State, the events took place in "a framework of armed conflict," so that it was very difficult to move the investigation forward. Considering the armed conflict in El Salvador at that time, the State asserts, "the investigation activities were conducted in due course, in other words, within a normal time frame." 23. The State rejected the charges of denial of justice, arguing that there was, at all times, judicial activity intended to arrive at the truth of the matter. This is shown by the opening of criminal proceedings, the hearing of testimony from many witnesses, inspections, exhumations, and the request for information about the alleged perpetrators. All these activities were conducted by the judiciary despite the atmosphere of armed conflict prevailing at the time, which made the area insecure, and even though court officials did not have adequate financial resources to properly discharge their task. 4 The Truth Commission concluded that "The President of the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador, Dr. Mauricio Gutiérrez Castro, has exerted undue negative influence, with biased political views, on the judicial proceedings in the case." De la locura a la esperanza, la guerra de 12 años en El Salvador," Report of the Truth Commission for El Salvador, United Nations, San Salvador-New York 1992-1993. 5 "De la locura a la esperanza, la guerra de 12 años en El Salvador," Report of the Truth Commission for El Salvador, United Nations, San Salvador-New York 1992-1993, p. 124. 4