207. Based on the documentation provided by the parties, the Commission takes note of the various measures taken by the prosecutor of the Unit for Administrative Proceedings of Pichincha from 2014 to 2016. The Commission notes that the State did not report on whether it had taken any measure to verify the account of the institutionalized person who told Ms. Chimbó that her son had suffered a heart attack at the hospital, nor, in general, to develop the hypothesis that he may have died in the hospital followed by a coverup of what happened. To the contrary, the search measures appear to focus on the hypothesis that he escaped. 208. The Commission considers that in view of facts in the record, neither the criminal investigation, or the administrative investigation, or the remedies of habeas corpus (exhibición personal) and complaint (queja) before the Office of the Human Rights Ombudspersons, were pursued with the due diligence that was required of the authorities in charge of the domestic proceedings in the instant case. The IACHR recalls that in cases of alleged disappearances only if all necessary efforts available to the State are deployed to determine the truth of what happened to the victim and his or her whereabouts may it be considered that an effective remedy was made available.357 209. Accordingly, the Commission concludes that the Ecuadorian State violated the rights to judicial guarantees and judicial protection established at Articles 8(1) and 25 of the American Convention in relation to the obligations established at Article 1(1) of the same instrument, to the detriment of Luis Eduardo Guachalá Chimbó and his family members identified in this report. The State also violated Article I(b) of the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons. 2. On reasonable time 210. Article 8(1) of the American Convention establishes as one of the elements of due process that the courts must decide the cases submitted to them in a reasonable time. Accordingly, a prolonged delay may constitute, in itself, a violation of the right to judicial guarantees. 358 It is up to the State to set forth and prove why more than a reasonable time has been needed to hand down a final judgment in a particular case. 359 The reasonableness of the time should be weighed in relation to the total duration of the criminal proceeding 360 and in light of the four elements that the Court has identified in its case-law: (i) the complexity of the matter; (ii) the procedural activity of the interested party; (iii) the conduct of the judicial authorities; and (iv) general impairment of the legal situation of the person involved in the process. 361 211. In relation to complexity, the IACHR notes that the State indicated that despite having taken various steps, it has not been possible to identify Mr. Guachalá’s whereabouts. The IACHR considers that for an argument on complexity to be admissible, the State must present specific information that directly ties the elements of complexity invoked with the delays in the proceeding. That has not happened in the instant case. The Commission recalls what has been indicated by the Court to the effect that the delay in the pursuit of the investigation cannot be justified based on the complexity of the matter when there are possible hypotheses of what may have happened that have not been investigated 362, as in the instant case and already described in this report. 212. In terms of the participation of the interested parties, the Commission observes that there is no element whatsoever in the record that indicates that the family members obstructed the process or had any responsibility for the delay. To the contrary, the family members participated actively in the proceedings and pursued several channels to seek to clarify what happened. IACHR, Report No. 111/09, Case 11,324, Merits, Narciso González Medina, Dominican Republic, November 10, 2009, para. 225. I/A Court HR. Case of García Asto and Ramírez Rojas v. Peru. Judgment of November 25, 2005. Series C No. 137, para. 166. 359 I/A Court HR. Case of Ricardo Canese v. Paraguay. Judgment of August 31, 2004. Series C No. 111, para. 142. 360 IACHR, Report No. 77/02, Case 11,506, Merits, Waldemar Gerónimo Pinheiro and José Víctor dos Santos, Paraguay, December 27, 2002, para. 76. 361 I/A Court HR. Case of Massacre of Santo Domingo v. Colombia. Preliminary Objections, Merits and Reparations. Judgment of November 30, 2012. Series C No. 259, para. 164. 362 I/A Court HR. Case of the Barrios Family v. Venezuela. Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of November 24, 2011. Series C No. 237, para. 275. 357 358 39