in idem was not an absolute right and was inapplicable when its purpose was to shield the accused from their criminal responsibility, or if it was not declared by an independent and impartial judge, or if it was not declared with the true intention of submitting the person responsible to the action of justice. 185. Regarding the statute of limitations and the principle of strict legality, the representatives argued that the prohibition and imprescriptibility of crimes against humanity has achieved the status of a peremptory norm of jus cogens that must be respected and complied with by the international community of States, regardless of whether or not they had ratified instruments that included such crimes. According to the representatives, at the time of the facts of this case, in 1975, torture and crimes against humanity had already been recognized as violations of international law. 186. Regarding the unjustified delay and the obstacles to the public civil action, the representatives of the presumed victims emphasized that, more than eight years after it had been filed, there was still no decision on the appeal in the public civil action filed by the Federal Public Prosecution Service in 2008. They stressed that the public civil action was of a declaratory nature, with specific requests based on documentary evidence provided to the case file, and that the accused had been identified and located, which eliminated the possibility of citing the criterion of the complexity of the action. The unjustified delay was based exclusively on the conduct of the judicial authorities who had acted with negligence and omission. This delay was particularly serious because the purpose of the public civil action was to obtain a declaration of the existence of the State obligation to release all the information relating to the activities conducted in the Army’s DOI/CODI over the period 1970 to 1985. 187. Regarding the State’s omission in relation to the effects of the Court’s judgment in the case of Gomes Lund et al., the representatives alleged that when the Court established that the Amnesty Law could not represent an obstacle for the investigation and punishment of those responsible for gross human rights violations, it also determined that the judgment would have effects for other cases of serious violations that had occurred in Brazil. Despite this, the State had failed to take the necessary steps to re-open the criminal investigations into serious human rights violations, the result being, in their opinion, that the State had incurred international responsibility for omission in the instant case. 188. Consequently, the representatives argued that Brazil was responsible for violating the obligation to ensure the right to freedom of expression owing to the failure to investigate, prosecute and punish those responsible for the gross human rights violations committed against the journalist Vladimir Herzog. They also concluded that the impunity of the facts to date constituted a situation of permanent violation of the obligation to investigate and punish torture, which resulted in the violation of the State’s obligation to guarantee Articles 5 and 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights, in relation to Articles 1(1), 8 and 25 of this instrument, as well as Articles 1, 6 and 8 of the ICPPT, “to the detriment of Vladimir Herzog.” 189. They also concluded that the State was responsible for violating the rights established in Articles 8 and 25 of the Convention, in relation to Articles 1(1) and 2 of this instrument, owing to the application of the Amnesty Law, the statute of limitations and other provisions of domestic law that prevented the investigation and punishment of the facts denounced. They considered, therefore, that, by applying such provisions, the State organs deprived Vladimir Herzog of due judicial protection, denying the right of his family to be heard by a competent authority and preventing them from obtaining a diligent, impartial and effective investigation. 190. Lastly, they considered that the State had violated the obligation to investigate, pursuant to the provisions of Articles 5 of the Convention and 1, 6 and 8 of the ICPPT. 40