- 8State from its obligation to comply with the international obligations that are pending
and from the obligation to adopt the necessary measures to repair the violations that
were committed. In this regard, the Ombudsman's Office in its “Report […[ on the
forced disappearance of the children, Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz, its current
impunity and the pattern of violence in which such disappearances occurred” of
September 2, 2004, stated that:
Following the disappearances, impunity was ensured by the military authorities' lack of
records of such cases, the denial of information to the next of kin and the human rights
organizations (even during the post-conflict decade), the failure to promote any
measures that would make family reunification possible, and the context of military
harassment of villages that were victimized during the years after the armed conflict.
149. In this regard, the Court stresses that the right to co-existence and to
maintain family relations implies that the State should adopt appropriate measures
at the national and the international level to ensure the union or the reunification of
families that have been separated. These obligations acquire greater relevance when
the separation of the members of a family responds to such special circumstances as
those indicated in this case (supra para. 48(1), 48(2), 48(3), 48(4), 48(5), 48(6),
48(7), 48(8) and 48(11)).
150. In this regard, during the public hearing and in its final written arguments,
the State declared that it had the “firm decision” and “determination” to “promote
the reunification of the Salvadoran families who were separated as a result of the
conflict, in the context of and in order to know the truth.” And, in response to a
question asked by the Court concerning its willingness to “investigate the facts that
have been described in this case […] until reasonable and satisfactory results are
reached,” the State indicated that it would continue “using the ordinary proceedings
already filed and still pending and, second, by creating an institution, a commission,
that, with the help of everyone - and that meant everyone, without excluding anyone
- w[ould] make a parallel effort to investigate the facts.”
151. With regard to the domestic judicial proceedings, in the specific case of the
habeas corpus procedure before the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of
Justice, and the criminal proceedings filed before the Chalatenango Trial Court, it has
been established that the State did not process these proceedings in a diligent
manner that would have allowed them to be effective in determining what happened
to Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz, discovering their whereabouts, and
investigating and punishing those responsible, as the Court has indicated when ruling
on the violation of Articles 8 and 25 of the American Convention (supra para. 106).
By failing for many years to conduct a diligent investigation into what happened to
Ernestina and Erlinda, the State has prevented their fate from being known and,
consequently, has not established the necessary conditions for them to be able to reestablish relations with their family, should they be alive.
152. With regard to other non-judicial measures, during these proceedings the
Court has only received information on the creation in 1999, at the recommendation
of the Attorney General, of the “Attorney General's Committee” (Mesa del
Procurador) (supra para. 48(12)) with the purpose of trying to trace the children who
disappeared during the armed conflict. However, according to the information in the
file before the Court, this committee did not achieve any results. In this regard,
during the public hearing before the Court (supra para. 14), Father Juan María
Raimundo Cortina Garaígorta emphasized that one of the reasons why the committee
was unsuccessful was the lack of interest and collaboration from other State
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