35. In addressing the petition process to gather signatures for convening the recall referendum of the President of the Republic, the State explained that the process requires the signatures of at least twenty per cent of all voters, as set forth in Article 72 of the Constitution of that country. Accordingly, the CNE examined the signatures it had received and challenged some of them citing irregularities. According to the State, this is what led the CNE to create the database questioned by the petitioners, which was intended to be a citizens’ instrument to help verify whether or not signatures had been fraudulently included in the petition. 36. The State explained that on March 2, 2004, the CNE issued rules to regulate the challenge process in order to verify the legitimacy of the signatures and that this process was to take place on April 20, 2004. The State contends that the signature verification day was actually held on June 27, 2004, and that because the signature of Rocío San Miguel was one of the ones that had been challenged for alleged irregularities, the contract of Rocío San Miguel could not have been decided on the basis of a signature that took legal effect as of the time of the challenge, in other words, once the whole petition process on the presidential referendum had concluded. 37. By the account of the State, the processes of rescission of contracts of the alleged victims were conducted with strict adherence to the law and respecting the principle of the will of the signatory parties to said contracts. According to the State, on December 31, 2003, the alleged victims signed a new contract with the National Border Council, which went into effect on January 1, until December 31, 2004. The State asserted that on March 12, 2004, the chairman of the National Border Council decided to terminate the contracts of Rocío San Miguel Sosa, Magally Chang Girón, and Thais Coromoto Peña invoking the seventh clause of those contracts. 38. The State indicated that by the time the alleged "calls for political discrimination" began, the contracts of the alleged victims had already been terminated; therefor there is no link of cause and effect between their taking part in the process of collecting signatures and the termination of the contracts. 39. The State claimed that, as a consequence of the termination of their contracts, the alleged victims filed on June 22, 2004, for constitutional relief via the amparo proceeding. The State asserted that on July 27, 2005, the amparo claim was found groundless on the merits of the matter, and that on September 9, 2005, the Third Superior Trial Court upheld the original trial court decision. 40. The State contended that the alleged victims filed a complaint before the Office of the People’s Ombudsman on May 27, 2004, and that on August 17, 2004, the Office of the People’s Ombudsman issued an official certificate of closure of the proceeding for lack of sufficient evidence to establish that there was a violation of the human rights of the complainants. The State further noted that the alleged victims never went to the CNE to lay out their case so that this agency could determine whether there had been a violation of their political rights. 41. The State claimed that on July 6, 2004, the alleged victims filed a complaint with the Office of the Public Prosecutor, but on January 1, 2005, the Office of the Thirty-Seventh Prosecuting Attorney of the Office of the Public Prosecutor with Full Jurisdiction nationwide moved for the dismissal of the case, a decision upheld at the appeals level. The State also noted that the alleged victims filed a direct appeal to the highest court of review (casación), which was also denied. 42. As for the violation of the right to humane treatment, the State contended that applying a clause of a contract can hardly be viewed as “cruel” treatment. The State also asserted that the complainants were unsuccessful at proving that they had been threatened, and noted that because the relevant labor law, the alleged victims were eligible to apply for civil service positions through a competitive process. 43. With regard to the charge of violation of the right to a fair trial, the State asserted that the alleged victims were not the target of administrative sanctions, but of the application of a contractual clause that granted the power to the employer, as well as to the employee, to terminate the work relationship simply by giving notice to cease their activities, without cause. In this regard, the State considered that the complainants were not “removed from office” (‘destituido’ a term reserved for public officials) but rather the 6