38 custody for a period that was disproportionately long in view of the punishment corresponding to the suspected crime. 137. The Court finds, therefore, that the State violated articles 7(1), 7(5) and 8(2) of the American Convention, in conjunction with article 1(1) thereof, in injury of the 18 suspects who remained in pretrial detention until 1987. 138. The Court also holds that the detention of the applicants from June 5, 1989 until July of the same year (supra par. 82 and 84), was the outcome of a judgment by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which convicted them in a first trial to a term that exceeded the time they had already been in pretrial detention; accordingly, the Court does not hold the State responsible for a violation of the American Convention in this situation. VIII-2 RIGHT TO A FAIR TRIAL AND RIGHT TO JUDICIAL PROTECTION A. Guarantees of competence, independence and impartiality A.1 Arguments of the Commission and the parties 139. The Commission discussed the special status of the military courts, arguing “[w]hen military justice in Argentina came under the Ministry of Defense, it [was] therefore under the Executive Branch, and [the military courts] [were] not independent or impartial and, even more importantly, [were] not part of the justice system.” 140. It added, however, “[a]t no time did [the alleged victims] argue that the [Supreme Council of the Armed Forces] was not the appropriate court to try [them] or that they should have been tried in a general criminal court. The alleged victims were active, in-service military personnel who were tried and convicted for military offenses before a military court.” The Commission concluded, accordingly, that the alleged victims “had access to an appropriate, impartial and independent court when their appeals were heard by the National Chamber of Criminal Cassation, and they also exercised their right to appeal to the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court of Argentina. [Therefore,] Argentina did not commit violation of articles 8 and 25 of the American Convention.” 141. Representatives Vega and Sommer stated that the military courts, staffed by officers who were part of the hierarchy of the Executive Branch, are unconstitutional because they openly violate the provision that prohibits the executive from performing judicial duties. The military courts therefore cannot be considered a jurisdiction in the constitutional or international sense, but instead are administrative panels not qualified to apply criminal laws. These representatives claimed in their pleadings and motions brief that the State had been responsible for violating articles 8 and 25 of the Convention. In their final written pleadings, however, they asked the Court to find violation of articles 8(1), 8(2(d)), 8(2(g)) and 8(3) thereof. 142. The Inter-American Defenders stated, “[t]he bodies performing judicial duties lacked impartiality and independence insofar as the Code of Military Justice itself thwarted these principles by allowing judges and panel members of military courts to perform their duties within the hierarchical structure of which they were a part, because as official members of the armed forces, they were subject to the chain of command.” They concluded, therefore,