6 2. Establish a mechanism to identify as many of the victims executed in the present case and provide whatever is needed to continue the identification process and return the victims’ mortal remains. 3. Establish a mechanism to determine who the disappeared persons in the massacres were and the survivors. 4. Locate the disappeared victims’ mortal remains and restore them to their next of kin. 5. Establish a mechanism to facilitate full identification of the next of kin of the victims who were executed and disappeared, so that they may claim the reparations to which they are entitled. 6. Conduct, conclude and re-open, as the case may be, the domestic proceedings into the human rights violations declared in the present report and conduct an impartial and effective investigation, within a reasonable time, to clarify all the facts, identify the intellectual and material authors and impose the penalties prescribed by law. 7. Strengthen the capacity of the judicial branch to investigate the facts and punish those responsible, including the materials and techniques needed to ensure that the proceedings unfold properly. 8. Order the appropriate administrative, disciplinary or criminal measures for the actions or omissions committed by state officials that have been instrumental in denying justice and enabling those responsible for the events of the case to go unpunished, or who were involved in measures to obstruct the proceedings being conducted to identify and punish the responsible parties. 9. Adopt the measures necessary to avoid a recurrence of similar events, in furtherance of the obligation to prevent and guarantee the human rights recognized in the American Convention. In particular, implement permanent programs in human rights and international humanitarian law in the Armed Forces’ training schools. d) Notification to the State. On May 5, 2014, the Commission notified the Merits Report to the State, granting it two months to report on compliance with the recommendations. Guatemala submitted a report in which it “indicated in general terms the existence of the National Reparations Program and the functioning of the National Institute of Forensic Sciences, without specifying the exact mechanisms implemented to provide redress to the victims, survivors and next of kin in the instant case, and to identify the mortal remains […]. It stated that the [investigations] would continue and invoked the National Reconciliation Law, pointing out that the State cannot ignore the domestic legal framework. According to the Commission, the State did not request an “extension to comply with the recommendations.” e) Submission to the Court. On August 5, 2014, the Commission submitted the case to the Inter-American Court “in light of the need to obtain justice […] given the State’s failure to comply with the recommendations.” Commissioner James Cavallaro and the then Executive Secretary, Emilio Álvarez Icaza L 3 were appointed as delegates. Elizabeth Abi-Mershed, Deputy Executive Secretary, and Silvia Serrano Guzmán and Erick Acuña Pereda, lawyers of the Executive Secretariat, were appointed as legal advisers. II PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE COURT 3. Notification to the State and the representatives. The submission of the case was notified to the State on October 17, 2014, and to the representatives of the alleged victims 4 (hereinafter “the representatives”) on October 30, 2014. 4. Brief with pleadings, motions and evidence. On January 5, 2015, the representatives filed 3 Paulo Abrão is the current Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Commission (IACHR), a position he assumed on August 16, 2016. 4 The Asociación Bufete Jurídico Popular represented the alleged victims during the processing of this case before the Court, initially through their then legal representative Conrado Aj Piox and the attorney María Dolores Itzep Manuel. In a brief of April 20, 2016, the Association reported that Mr. Aj Piox no longer acts as its legal representative, and that his role was assumed by Paulina Ixpatá Alvarado de Osorio.