the judicial settlement of cases. Criminal investigations have made substantial progress in clarifying the events and in bringing the guilty parties to justice. Nevertheless, the petition maintains, progress on the criminal front has been clouded by the attitude of the Chilean courts on the issue of reparations. 6. The petitioner argues that in the cases at hand, despite the fact that crimes against humanity were involved, the State has used domestic precepts of private law to deny the reparations to which the relatives of the victims are entitled under international law. The petitioner declares that during the years 2002 and 2003, the Supreme Court of Chile denied reparations to relatives of victims of forced disappearances, summary executions, and torture committed during the military dictatorship.4 In the petitioner's view, these rulings have established a negative jurisprudence that has been followed by the lower courts and that has nullified the possibility of obtaining adequate reparations in four cases that he is pursuing. 7. The first of these cases deals with the ruling issued by the 17th Civil Court of Santiago on June 19, 2002 in the case of Navarrete con Fisco de Chile (Case 3118-2000). The petitioner argues that the judgment in this case denied a petition of reparation for mental suffering of the mother, Magdalena Mercedes Navarrete, and the brothers, Alberto Reyes Navarrete, Víctor Eduardo Reyes Navarrete and Patricio Hernán Reyes Navarrete, as a result of the death of Mr. Sergio Alfonso Reyes Naverrete, a militant socialist who was arrested on June 19, 1974 by agents of the National Intelligence Department (DINA) and has been missing since then. On November 7, 2002 the plaintiffs brought an appeal against the decision, but this was dismissed as desierto 5 by the Santiago Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals returned the case to the court of first instance which, on June 26, 2003, confirmed its earlier ruling (with an order of cúmplase), thereby closing the case. 8. The second case refers to the ruling of the 16th Civil Court of Santiago in the case of “Vivanco Medina con Fisco de Chile” (Case 3245-2000). In that case, Mrs. Pamela Adriana Vivanco Medida sought compensation for suffering following the death of her father Ramon Luis 4 As examples, the petitioner cites the following rulings by the Supreme Court of justice: “Domic vs. Fisco de Chile”, Case 4753-2001, “Cortés Barraza vs. Fisco de Chile”, Case 1122-2001, and “Pisan vs. Fisco de Chile” Case 2850-2001. 5 “Desierto” is a juridical term used in Chile to mean "lapsed" or "expired", signifying that an appeal is untimely or out of order. 3