76 e) f) g) h) i) j) k) victims of violence and the recovery of historical memory regarding the events that took place in Perú for two decades. It has also proved useful for the investigations of competent bodies into egregious human rights violations, including those perpetrated at La Cantuta; at present, two criminal proceedings are dealing with the facts at La Cantuta pursuant to Peruvian domestic law, and there is an ongoing preliminary investigation into the intellectual perpetrators of the same facts. It should be emphasized that the criminal proceedings being held at the Supreme Court of Justice have involved a former President of the Republic, that is to say, the highest authority of the State, which is a signal that the work of national courts is serious and significant; the State admits that those who are being prosecuted or investigated have not been convicted, but it also acknowledges that the duty to investigate and punish is a duty pertaining to means and not to outcome, as established in the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court in the cases of VelásquezRodríguez, Godínez-Cruz, Caballero-Delgado and Santana and BaldeónGarcía. The State's decision to bring two criminal proceedings and launch a preliminary investigation should not be regarded merely as a formality doomed to failure but as a serious and firm process to reverse the impunity that authorities attempted to institutionalize in Perú during the past decade; the Commission's request to conduct a complete, impartial, effective and prompt investigation into the facts and people involved in the undue interventions of different state bodies is not opposed by the State: it coincides with its efforts to investigate the facts and avoid impunity. The criminal case brought against the material perpetrators of the facts has reached the oral proceedings stage, that is, it is substantively advanced; as regards the obstruction of investigations, the State politely requests the Court to assess the information submitted in relation to the fact that Perú, through competent and fully independent bodies, has already adopted effective measures to punish those responsible for obstructing the investigations of the instant case at a domestic level; in a State in which the rule of law prevails, the Executive Power cannot replace nor give orders or directives to the Attorney General´s Office or the Judiciary. These autonomous entities have oversight bodies belonging to a constitutional body, the National Council of the Magistracy, with functional jurisdiction over the matter, pursuant to the Constitution and the laws; the slowness of the Peruvian Judiciary in the investigation and prosecution of all those responsible for these facts has been criticized, and said criticisms are partly justified, but since our countries' judicial systems respect the due process and the right to a fair trial, the accused parties are allowed to fully exercise their right to defend themselves. This is one of the reasons why the whole process offers and faces successive delays. It should also be explained to the Court that the logistic capacity of the State upon beginning to investigate and prosecute many former high-ranking State officials and other citizens for acts of corruption and human rights violations has led to a situation in which the judicial scenario offering the best security conditions is saturated and thus, for example, in the instant case and particularly in internal venue, judicial proceedings are scheduled to be conducted only once a week. On some occasions, due to incidents or arrangements, with the good or bad faith (which we shall not proceed to assess now) of the accused and the defense counsel, proceedings face unwanted delays; regarding the punishment of instigators, the State clarifies that both the criminal proceedings at the Supreme Court involving former President Alberto