32. Soon after the habeas corpus resolution of the Supreme Court, the Office of the Attorney General initiated a proceeding, yet to date the facts that began 23 years ago have yet to be clarified. The Commission considers that given the time elapsed since the original facts (1983) or since the judicial authorities took cognizance of them (1993, 1998, and 2002), it is possible to hold that there has been an unwarranted delay that exempts the petitioners from having to exhaust domestic remedies. Moreover, the Commission considers that the State has not presented any evidence that in El Salvador habeas corpus was or is an effective remedy for establishing the children’s whereabouts. The State has not provided information that shows that habeas corpus can be used to actually locate or determine the fate of a disappeared person. 33. Based on all the foregoing, the Inter-American Commission decides to apply the exception provided for at Article 46(2)(c) of the American Convention to the instant case. Accordingly, the requirements set forth in said Convention regarding exhaustion of domestic remedies do not apply, nor the six-month period for submitting the petition. At the same time, the IACHR does not consider that lodging a complaint with the International Committee of the Red Cross is one of the remedies that the Convention requires be exhausted. 34. Finally, it should be noted that invoking the exceptions to the prior exhaustion of domestic remedies rule provided for in the American Convention is closed linked to the determination of possible violations of certain rights enshrined in it, such as effective judicial protection. Article 46(2) of the American Convention, nonetheless, is a norm whose content is autonomous vis-avis the other substantive provisions of the Convention. In order to determine whether the exceptions to the exhaustion of domestic remedies result in violations of the American Convention in the instant case, one must undertake a different analysis in the merits stage. This is because the analysis of those exceptions uses standards of appreciation different from those applicable to the determination of violations of Articles 8 and 25 of the American Convention. 2. Time for submitting the petition 35. Article 32 of the IACHR’s Rules of Procedure provides that in those cases in which the exceptions to the requirement of exhaustion of domestic remedies apply, the petition must be submitted within a time that is reasonable, in the Commission’s view, mindful of the date of the alleged violation, and the circumstances of each case. 36. In this respect, taking into account the date of the facts alleged, the possibility of a continuing human rights violation, and the status of the various domestic remedies in El Salvador, the Commission considers that the petition under study was submitted within a reasonable time. 3. Duplication of procedures and res judicata 37. The objections provided for in Article 46(1)(d) and Article 47(d) of the American Convention have not been raised by the Salvadoran State, nor do they arise from the information contained in the record in the instant case. 4. Characterization of the facts alleged 38. The IACHR considers that the facts alleged, if true, would tend to establish violations of the rights protected at Articles 5, 7, 8, 17, 18, 19, and 25, all in conjunction with Article 1(1) of the American Convention. 39. Under the principle of iura novit curia, and from the reiterated case-law of the Commission and the Court to the effect that if a forced disappearance is proven, it constituted a violation of 8