15 82. That evidence also shows that some individuals were captured and detained without due process and subsequently reappeared. However, in some of those cases, the reappearances were not the result of any of the legal remedies which, according to the Government, would have been effective, but rather the result of other circumstances, such as the intervention of diplomatic missions or actions of human rights organizations. 83. The Government argued at the hearing that the Commission should not have admitted the petition since it was presented the same day --October 9, 1982-- that the wife of Saúl Godínez filed a criminal complaint in the First Court of Choluteca. The Court observes that the fact that such objection was not made in a timely manner before the Commission might have been interpreted as a tacit waiver of the defense. However, in the abstract and regardless of whether it is necessary to resort to the criminal courts in a case such as this, the determining factor in weighing the Government's argument is the fact that nothing had been done with regard to the criminal complaint in Honduras as of the date the Government made the objection. In such circumstances it is clearly inappropriate to claim that such action was a domestic remedy whose failure to exhaust would hinder the Court from considering and deciding the instant case. 84. The Government has also indicated that the remedies of habeas corpus were not successful because the claimants did not formalize them at the proper time. Notwithstanding whether writs of habeas corpus are effective in cases of forced disappearance, the Court must conclude that the argument is not well-founded, since writs were successful in spite of not being formalized in some of the cases offered by the Government to show the effectiveness of habeas corpus at the time Saúl Godínez disappeared (supra 73). 85. The evidence offered shows that certain lawyers who filed writs of habeas corpus were intimidated (infra 98 and 100), that those who were responsible for executing the writs were frequently prevented from entering or inspecting the places of detention, and that occasional criminal complaints against military or police officials were ineffective, either because certain procedural steps were not taken or because the complaints were dismissed without further proceedings. 86. The Government had the opportunity to call its own witnesses to refute the evidence presented by the Commission, but failed to do so. Although the Government's attorneys contested some of the points urged by the Commission, they did not offer convincing evidence to support their arguments. The Court summoned as witnesses some members of the armed forces mentioned during the proceeding, but their testimony was insufficient to overcome the weight of the evidence offered by the Commission to show that the judicial and governmental authorities did not act with due diligence in cases of disappearances. The instant case is such an example. 87. The testimony and other evidence received and not refuted leads to the conclusion that, during the period under consideration, although there may have been legal remedies in Honduras that theoretically allowed a person detained by the authorities to be found, those remedies were ineffective in cases of disappearances because the imprisonment was clandestine; formal requirements made them inapplicable in practice; the authorities against whom they were brought simply ignored them, or because attorneys and judges were threatened and intimidated by those authorities. 88. Aside from the question of whether between 1981 and 1984 there was a governmental policy of carrying out or tolerating the disappearance of certain persons, the Commission has shown that although writs of habeas corpus and criminal complaints were filed, they were ineffective or were mere formalities. The evidence offered by the Commission was not refuted and is sufficient to reject the Government's preliminary objection that the case is inadmissible because domestic remedies were not exhausted.