-25- Judicial inspections of the logbooks of the Fourth Brigade and of the No. 1 Military Detachment were pending when he was assigned to investigate the case of the Serrano Cruz sisters. Previously, other prosecutors had requested the judge to order the inspection of the logbooks. In June 2003, the judge ordered an inspection of the Fourth Brigade’s logbook, but when they visited the brigade, the head of the brigade told them that the judge must submit a request to the Chief of the General Staff. Regarding the pending inspections, he has “not taken any steps recently owing to [his] workload”; he has not made a new request to the judge to order the pending inspections to be made. The files where birth certificates were registered were destroyed owing to the armed conflict; accordingly, a law was enacted to regulate how new birth certificates could be registered. To find indications of the identity of the Serrano Cruz girls, the witness’s superior sent official communications to the churches in the nearest places to verify whether they had really been baptized. With regard to Erlinda, in the record of baptisms, it appears that she was baptized in February 1979 and that she was born in 1978, while, when her mother registered her in the mayor’s office of San Antonio de la Cruz, she indicated that the child was born in July 1979. He requested that an expert provide a report on this record to verify its authenticity, because “if this baptismal certificate existed, obviously, these children existed.” Neither the witness nor the representatives of the State in the proceeding before the Court had seen the said record before the expert report was requested. He asked the judge in charge of the case to put forward the date of this expert report in order to present the results in the public hearing before the InterAmerican Court. A graphalogical examination was made of the said baptismal record, “subsequently, a physiochemical analysis was carried out,” but this was all part of a single expert report. The physiochemical analysis was made by a different expert from the one who made the graphalogical analysis. The expert report has still not been submitted; they merely drew up an official record when they visited the parish. Previously, it was common that children born in rural areas were not registered correctly. C) ASSESSMENT OF THE EVIDENCE Assessment of the Documentary Evidence 37. In this case, as in others,7 the Court accepts the probative value of the documents presented by the parties at the appropriate procedural opportunity or as helpful evidence, in accordance with Article 45(2) of it Rules of Procedure, that were not contested or opposed, and whose authenticity was not questioned. Likewise, the Court accepts, in accordance with Article 44 of the Rules of Procedure, the evidence presented by the representatives and the State concerning facts that were supervening to the filing of the application (supra paras. 7, 19 and 20).8 7 Cf. Case of Lori Berenson Mejía, supra note 3, para. 77; Case of Carpio Nicolle et al., supra note 3, para. 70; and Case of the Plan de Sánchez Massacre. Reparations, supra note 3, para. 39. 8 Cf. Case of De la Cruz Flores. Judgment of November 18, 2004. Series C No. 115, para. 58; Case of Myrna Mack Chang. Judgment of November 25, 2003. Series C No. 101, para. 128; and Case of Bulacio. Judgment of September 18, 2003. Series C No. 100, para. 57.