- 67 - In addition to the notary, for both the civil registrars when registering the adoption, and the Immigration officials when issuing passports in cases of intercountry adoption, the favorable decision of the Attorney General’s Office was a specific requirement. Cf. CICIG, Report on irregular adoptions in Guatemala, pp. 30 and 82 (evidence file, folios 3027 and 3081). 378 Cf. CICIG, Report on irregular adoptions in Guatemala, pp. 31 and 42 (evidence file, folios 3028 and 3039). Similarly, expert witness Jaime Tecú indicated that, in many cases, “the Attorney General’s Office [PGN] implemented a system of reviewing the documents submitted to it; merely a review of the documents in the case file; it never reviewed the children’s guarantees: whether the child had a family, if this family was still claiming their child. Rather, if any document was missing in the case file, it issued a ‘caution’ indicating ‘before taking a decision’ bring this document or incorporate this document. Therefore, if there was a problem in the notarial adoption, they went to the judge and the judge took a decision without the opinion of the PGN; thus, in such cases, the judicial mechanism was used to circumvent the PGN’s request, by indicating that ‘this document is required.’” Expert opinion provided by Jaime Tecú during the public hearing held before this Court and written version of this opinion (merits report, folio 1098). 379 380 CICIG, Report on irregular adoptions in Guatemala, p. 42 (evidence file, folio 3039). 381 Cf. CICIG, Report on irregular adoptions in Guatemala, p. 42 (evidence file, folio 3039). It should be underlined that, according to the helpful documentation forwarded by the State in December 2017, a lawyer, in representation of Mrs. Ramírez Escobar, had advised the Attorney General’s Office, in February 1998, that “the mother of the [two] children had been deprived of them by the processing of a case fraught with anomalies,” and an application for judicial review had been filed. The note requested that “strict control should be kept over the 382