-116judgment and conviction in absentia of members of the paramilitary group, who have benefited from the action of the justice system that convicted them but has failed to execute the sentence. 188. The Court considers that the investigation and the proceedings conducted in the ordinary criminal jurisdiction have not represented an effective recourse that guaranteed, within a reasonable time, the right of access to justice of the next of kin of those who were disappeared or deprived of life, with full observance of judicial guarantees. Military criminal jurisdiction 189. Regarding the nature of the military criminal jurisdiction, the Court has established that under the democratic rule of law this jurisdiction must have a restricted and exceptional scope and be designed to protect special juridical interests associated with the functions assigned by law to the military forces. Hence, it should only try military personnel for committing crimes or misdemeanors that, due to their nature, harm the juridical interests of the military system,234 irrespective of the fact that, at the time of the facts, the laws of Colombia allowed this jurisdiction to investigate facts such as those of the instant case. 190. In this regard, the State itself mentioned a 2001 judgment of the Constitutional Court of Colombia when it referred to “the advances achieved in Colombia with regard to human rights, as regards the exercise and proper understanding of the military jurisdiction.”235 Already, in 1997, the Constitutional Court had ruled on the scope of the jurisdiction of the military criminal justice system and indicated, inter alia, that: […] For a crime to fall within the jurisdiction of the military criminal justice system […] the illegal act must stem from an abuse of power or authority that occurred within the framework of an activity directly associated with a function inherent to the armed forces. […I]f, from the outset, the agent has criminal intentions, and uses his official position to carry out the illegal act, the case corresponds to the ordinary justice system, even when there may be some abstract relationship between the purposes of the armed forces and the illegal act of the agent. [… T]he connection between the criminal act and the activity related to the armed forces is broken when the crime is unusually serious, such as in socalled crimes against humanity. In those circumstances, the case must be attributed to ordinary justice, given the total contradiction between the crime and the constitutional functions of the Armed Forces.236 191. Regarding the preliminary inquiry opened in January 1990 by the 21st Military Criminal Trial Court “to determine where there had been a violation of the criminal laws by the troops based in San Pedro de Urabá,” less than three months later, this court decided to abstain from opening a criminal investigation (supra para. 95(48)). Although the inquiry was re-opened in August 1990, based on a report made by an officer from this battalion (supra para. 95(49)), three months later the said court merely received this officer’s statement and, once again, decided “to abstain from 234 Cf. Case of Palamara Iribarne, supra note 11, para. 124; Case of the “Mapiripán Massacre”, supra note 7, para. 202, and Lori Berenson Mejía case. Judgment of November 25, 2004. Series C No. 119, para. 142. 235 Cf. final written arguments presented by the State (merits file, tome IV, p. 129, folio 1009). 236 Cf. judgment C-358 of August 5, 1997, issued by the Constitutional Court, p. 33.