45 of kin had arranged with private funds to identify Mr. Portugal and determine his fate. In the words of Patria Portugal, this meant that, “a year after finding my father […] the State wanted to disappear him all over again.”143 Ultimately, a third DNA test, carried out in October 2001, concluded that the remains did belong to Heliodoro Portugal. 174. The Court finds that the uncertainty and absence of information from the State regarding what happened to Mr. Portugal, which to a great extent continue to this day, have been a source of frustration and anguish for his next of kin, in addition to causing feelings of insecurity, frustration and powerlessness in the face of the failure of the authorities to investigate the facts.144 175. Based on the above, the Court considers that the existence of close family ties, added to the efforts made by the next of kin in the search for justice and to know the truth of the whereabouts and circumstances of the disappearance of Heliodoro Portugal, as well as the failure of the State authorities to act or the ineffectiveness of the measures adopted to clarify the facts and punish those responsible for them, affected the mental and moral integrity of Graciela De León and her children, Patria and Franklin Portugal De León, which means that the State is responsible for the violation of the right to humane treatment established in Article 5(1) of the Convention, in relation to Article 1(1) thereof, to the detriment of these individuals. X FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH ARTICLES 2 (DOMESTIC LEGAL EFFECTS)145 OF THE AMERICAN CONVENTION, III OF THE INTER-AMERICAN CONVENTION ON FORCED DISAPPEARANCE OF PERSONS, AND 1, 6 AND 8 OF THE INTER-AMERICAN CONVENTION TO PREVENT AND PUNISH TORTURE 176. The Commission asked the Court to declare that the State had failed to comply with “its obligation to adopt the necessary measures to define the offense of forced disappearance of persons, to impose an appropriate penalty commensurate with its extreme gravity, and to consider forced disappearance as a continuing and permanent offense until the fate or whereabouts of the victim is known.” According to the Commission, the State’s obligation arises as of its ratification of the Convention on Forced Disappearance on February 28, 1996. The Commission also alleged that the failure to define that offense until its inclusion in the new Penal Code of 2007 “hampered the judicial proceedings” in the present case and “allowed impunity to be perpetuated.” Moreover, it stated that the definition in the 2007 Penal Code does not meet international standards […] particularly because it restricts the anti-juridical nature of the conduct to systematic or general statements.” 177. The representatives also argued that the failure to define the offense of forced disappearance has meant that “investigations into forced disappearances have been carried out under the offense of homicide” in Panama and this is what happened in the case of 143 Testimony given by Patria Portugal before the Inter-American Court, supra note 44. 144 Cf. Case of Blake, supra note 130, para. 114; Case of Albán Cornejo et al., supra note 22, para. 50, and Case of Cantoral Huamaní and García Santa Cruz, supra note 18, para. 117. 145 In this regard, Article 2 of the Convention establishes that: Where the exercise of any of the rights or freedoms referred to in Article 1 is not already ensured by legislative or other provisions, the States Parties undertake to adopt, in accordance with their constitutional processes and the provisions of this Convention, such legislative or other measures as may be necessary to give effect to those rights or freedoms.