-33been] established,” and “it consisted of 28 folios.”
48(23) On April 19, 1996, the Chalatenango Trial Court issued a decision it which it
decided “to comply with the measures ordered [by the Constitutional Chamber of
the Supreme Court of Justice] in the order” of March 14, 1996, regarding the petition
for habeas corpus filed by the mother of the Serrano Cruz sisters (supra para.
48(15) and 48(21)). The criminal file does not contain a decision to reopen the
proceedings; nevertheless, with this decision of April 19, 1996, it can be inferred that
the Court decided to reopen the investigation into the abduction of the sisters,
Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz, “against members of the Armed Forces of the
Atlacatl Battalion,” reported by María Victoria Cruz Franco on April 30, 1993. The file
of the proceedings before the Chalatenango Trial Court contains no record of the
Constitutional Chamber having been informed about the investigations carried out
during these proceedings, despite the Chamber’s request (supra para. 48(21)).
48(24) At the date of this judgment, approximately eight years and ten months have
elapsed since the criminal proceedings were reopened (supra para. 48(23)), and not
one member of the Atlacatl Battalion, against which criminal case No. 112/93 was
filed, has been named during the investigations under these proceedings. No one has
been criminally accused and no indictment has been filed naming someone as the
person guilty of the crime under investigation. In addition, throughout this lapse of
time, the proceedings have remained at the investigation stage, and the fate of the
sisters, Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz, has not been explained.
48(25) Approximately two years and one month after the reopening of the
proceedings (supra para. 48(23)), they were filed by an order of May 27, 1998, on
the basis that “the […] criminal proceedings have been totally exhausted (and [as] it
had not been possible to establish who had abducted them, the proceedings [were]
filed, in accordance with Art[icle] 125(2) [of the 1973 Penal Code], and the final part
of [Article] 126 of this Code.” The said Article 125(2) of the Penal Code, entitled
“Prescription of criminal proceedings,” establishes that criminal proceedings will
prescribe “after ten years, in the case of crimes punishable with a maximum term of
imprisonment of more than 15 years,” unless the law stipulates otherwise. The said
Article 126 in fine of the Penal Code, entitled “Commencement of the prescription,”
establishes that “[i]n those cases in which proceedings have been initiated, if they
are abandoned, the prescription period will be calculated beginning on the date of
the last judicial action.”
48(26) Three months after the representatives filed the petition before the InterAmerican Commission and almost a year after the order had been issued for the case
to be filed (supra para. 48(25)), the criminal investigation was reopened. The
criminal proceedings file contains no record of the formal reopening of the
investigation, but it does record that the proceedings were activated by a document
of May 17, 1999, in which the prosecutor requested a complete certification “of the
132 folios” of the file, arising from “instructions from the senior prosecutor, so as to
make a more detailed and thorough examination of [this] case.”
48(27) During the investigation stage of the criminal proceedings, the Chalatenango
Trial Court ordered, always at the prosecutor’s request, or received procedural
records, in relation to: a) testimonial statements of the mother and a sister of the
alleged victims, and the summons of a deceased person; b) the International
Committee of the Red Cross, the Salvadoran Red Cross, a hospital, and the Attorney
General’s office; c) the Armed Forces; and d) determination of the existence and