100. Second, the State must seek the information needed to achieve the objectives of an investigation and make it possible to ascertain the truth about what happened, using all possible means, making a "substantive effort" in good faith, and when the information was illegitimately stolen from official archives the State must employ such mechanisms as are needed to recover it.132 If the above efforts are unsuccessful, the State has an obligation to reconstruct the information lost. This duty to seek, recover, and reconstruct relevant information is intrinsic to the right of access to information. Under no circumstances may it be left to the discretion of a state organ whose agents are deemed to have committed an illicit act to decide whether or not the documentation requested exists.133 In Germany, for instance, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, thousands of bags were found containing the remains of documents pertaining to the intelligence services. The Birthler Commission, in charge of enforcing the law on Stasi archive, found that documents from 6,500 bags could be recovered and since then documents from more than 400 of the bags found were manually reconstructed.134 The Commission has considered that States need to make a major effort to find information that was allegedly destroyed; if in Germany it was possible to recover documents that had literally been torn to pieces, the States in our region should conduct serious, committed, and effective investigations to find copies of information that was purportedly lost.135 101. Third, State efforts to guarantee access to information would have to include opening up archives so that institutions investigating the facts may conduct on-site inspections; the drawing up of inventories and tracking data stored in official facilities; promoting searches that include raids in places where the information may be kept; conducting hearings and questioning those who may know where the information is being kept or who can reconstruct what happened; among other possibilities. Family members of victims and their representatives must be able to take part in such actions and have direct access to the documentation uncovered. When it is a matter of information relating to the forced disappearance of persons, under no circumstances may the information be kept from those investigating the crime and from the victims or close relatives of the victims. The IACHR has recognized that withholding information that could lead to the discovery of the whereabouts of a disappeared family member or that could shed light on the circumstances in which the crime was committed constitutes a form of cruel and inhumane treatment.136 102. Fourth, the State has a duty to preserve and facilitate access to State archives, when such exist; and to create and preserve them when they are not kept organized as such. In cases of serious human rights violations, the information such archives may contain is invaluable and essential not only for moving investigations forward but also for avoid the recurrence of the aberrant acts. This practice has already been adopted in some countries in the region that have created "memory archives" charged with compiling, analyzing, classifying, and disseminating documents, testimonies, and other kinds of information relating to human rights violations in the recent past, 137 For instance, Argentina has established a "National Memory Archive" (published in the Official Gazette on December 17, 2003). Article 1 of its regulations established that the function of the archive will be to "obtain, analyze, classify, duplicate, digitize and archive information, testimonies and documents on the breakdown of human rights and fundamental freedoms for which the Argentina State bears responsibility and on the social and institutional response to those violations."138 103. In short, the above-mentioned obligations entail a duty to make sincere and significant efforts to guarantee that the victims of grave human rights violations and their family members, those responsible for bound by this law may not invoke any of the confidentiality clauses mentioned in foregoing articles when the information requested refers to human rights violations or is relevant , for investigating, preventing, or avoiding violations of such rights"; OAS, Inter-American Model Law on Access to Information, 2010, Art. 45. 132 IACHR, Special Rapporteurship for Freedom of Expression, Annual Report (2010), Chapter III, Access to Information on human rights violations, para. 19. 133 IACHR, The Right to the Truth in the Americas, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.152, Doc. 2, August 13, 2014, para. 116. 134 See, in general, Jefferson Adams, Probing the East German State Security Archives, 13 International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 21(2000). 135 IACHR, Special Rapporteurship for Freedom of Expression, Annual Report (2010), Chapter III, Access to Information on human rights violations, para. 19. 136 IACHR, Special Rapporteurship for Freedom of Expression. El derecho de acceso a la información en el marco jurídico interamericano [The right to access information in the Inter-American Legal Framework] (second edition), March 7, 2011, para. 80-86. 137 IACHR, The Right to the Truth in the Americas, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.152, Doc. 2, August 13, 2014, para. 118. 138 IACHR, The Right to the Truth in the Americas, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.152, Doc. 2, August 13, 2014, para. 119. 27