33 military police agent who, according to Article 144 of the Constitution, was not authorized to make this request. In light of the said Article, since the offenses attributed to the COANA leaders were of an ordinary nature, the investigation fell within the exclusive competence of the civil police. Consequently, only a civil police agent could apply to the competent court for the intervention of a telephone line under Article 3 of Law No. 9,296/96. The Commission also indicated that: (i) the alleged victims were not subject to a criminal investigation; (ii) the interception of the telephone lines lasted for 49 days and the State did not provide any evidence to prove that it had been extended when the initial 15-day period had concluded; (iii) the decision authorizing the interception “was not duly founded; it did not indicate the way in which the measure should have been carried out or its duration,” and (iv) the Prosecutor General’s Office was not notified of its issue, all of which was contrary to Articles 5 and 6 of Law No. 9,296/96. The Commission therefore concluded that the telephone intervention application, the decision authorizing it and its implementation “were illegal, unlawful and invalid.” 120. Lastly, the Commission indicated that “the Judiciary’s refusal to destroy the 123 tapes obtained by monitoring the [COANA and ADECON] telephone numbers violated the right to privacy of the owners, Arle[i] José Escher, Dalton Luciano de Vargas, Delfino José Becker, Pedro Alves Cabral [and] Celso Aghinoni.” 121. The representatives endorsed the allegations of the Commission concerning the violations of the Constitution and of Law No. 9,296/96. They maintained that, in cases where there are specific indications of criminal offenses that must be investigated, Articles 11 and 32 of the Convention establish that the State must weigh the privacy of the individual against the public interest. They stated that Judge Khater granted the two applications for telephone interception without founding her decisions and disregarded the two basic requirements for granting the measure: (i) the probability of authorship and participation in a criminal offense or the existence of a criminal offense, and (ii) that the evidence was essential for the criminal investigation. Furthermore, Military Police agents were not authorized to submit the said application and the Prosecutor General’s Office was not notified of the procedure. They added that the alleged victims only had access to some of the transcripts of the recorded tapes. They also stated that, if the purpose of the interceptions was to verify evidence of diversion of public funds and the murder of Eduardo Aghinoni, this objective had been totally invalidated. In the summaries of the recorded conversations, the military police had only highlighted extracts that referred to the strategies developed by the landless workers to confront the persecution against them perpetrated by the Judiciary and the Military Police. 122. The State argued that privacy is protected by Article 5, paragraph X, of the Constitution. Nevertheless, that right was not absolute and restrictions were permitted in view of the need to protect other guarantees, as established in Article 30 of the Convention and in Article 5, paragraph XII, of the Constitution. Consequently, Law No. 9,296/96 regulates this restriction with regard to telephone communications. 123. According to the State, the monitoring request did not contain flaws that could lead to a human rights violation. It affirmed that the first telephone interception application with regard to the COANA line was made by Major Neves on May 3, 1999, and authorized by Judge Khater on May 5 that year. The second application for interception, also authorized by the courts, was presented by Sergeant Silva on May 12, 1999, and referred to both the COANA and ADECON telephone lines. The interception application was duly founded and referred to the need to investigate criminal practices; thus involving a conflict between two fundamental values. In view of this situation, “in which the law makes it possible to decide on the restriction of the right to privacy, in order to favor a right with a higher value,” Judge Khater decided to grant the interception application. The said procedure was initiated on May 14, 1999, and, therefore, “the first judicial authorization [of May 5, 1999,] never