86 274. The representative agreed with the legal grounds and conclusions relating to the violation of Articles 8(1) and 25(1) the American Convention developed in the Commission’s Merits Report. In addition, she argued “that the denial of justice and violations of due process suffered by I.V. during the said criminal case, not only involve the judicial officials and, therefore, the Judiciary of the Bolivian State, they also involved the Public Prosecution Service and its prosecutors.” She indicated that the complaints and requests that I.V. filed before the La Paz District Prosecutor asking him to change the prosecutor assigned to the case because she had abandoned it, was evidence that not only the judges who intervened in the proceedings had violated I.V.’s human rights with their delaying actions, but also the prosecutors of the Public Prosecution Service were responsible for that outcome. In the representative’s opinion, both the Judiciary and the Public Prosecution Service were responsible for the fact that the proceedings were archived without a decision on the merits, ensuring the impunity of the State agents who violated the rights of I.V. and, at the same time, the presumed victim was not provided with effective judicial protection. 275. The State argued that the criminal proceedings were undertaken diligently and decisions were taken within a reasonable time until it culminated with a decision that extinguished the criminal action. Regarding the evaluation of the reasonable time in criminal proceedings, the State affirmed that, “taking into account the complexity of the matter, the lack of interest of I.V., the activation of the parties’ procedural guarantees, and that the overall duration of the proceedings was in keeping with the standards of a reasonable time, there are no objective elements that would determine any violation of Article 8(1) of the Convention to the detriment of I.V.” 276. In its final arguments, the State indicated, citing case law of the European Court of Human Rights, that this case “did not warrant criminal proceedings to decide it,” and that the disciplinary administrative procedure was sufficient to ensure I.V.’s access to justice. According to the State, during the said procedure, which had all the characteristics of a judicial proceeding, “”all the judicial guarantees were realized.” The State also indicated that, since it had a disciplinary vocation, this procedure could have ended in the definitive dismissal of the physician. However, did not happen because, in a substantiated decision to acquit him that is now final, it was determined that the physician “acted pursuant to Bolivian health laws and to preserve I.V.’s future and maternal wellbeing. In sum, the State considered that it would be contradictory to criminally convict a physician for a medical act carried out in the absence of malice. Therefore, it concluded that it had complied with its obligation to provide proper judicial guarantees and judicial protection to I.V. through the administrative procedure that was implemented. 277. Additionally, the State indicated that it was not the function of the Inter-American Court to act as a “fourth instance,” in the sense that it was not for it to act as a high court with regard to domestic proceedings, and it could only review a decision handed down by domestic courts if there had been a flagrant violation of the Convention, which had not occurred in this case. In this regard, it argued that the domestic proceedings not only corresponded to a serious, just and impartial trial, but that the hypothesis finally accepted was the result of all the evidence collected during the proceedings. Consequently, the State argued that “the Court should respect the decisions made in the domestic sphere, since there was no evidence of a defect related to the treaty-based guarantees.” The State also argued that I.V. had not become a complainant in the case, which revealed a lack of diligence on her part in the processing of the case. Furthermore, it indicated that I.V. had not filed a disciplinary complaint against the domestic judges because she considered that they had unjustifiably delaying her criminal action, and this should be taken into account in the analysis of the reasonable time. A.2 Arguments on the Convention of Belém do Pará