victims of human rights violations to know the truth and obtain justice, and that the Court “did not limit its application to crimes against humanity or to those that are inalienable under other international treaties, but rather it continued to consolidate the jurisprudence of the Court in the sense that certain procedural concepts are inadmissible in cases of ‘serious violations of human rights.’” The Commission also noted that it was not unaware of the decision by the Court in the case of Albán Cornejo v. Ecuador “in the sense that in that case the application of a statute of limitation was not at hand, given that the facts were not imprescribtable in the terms covered by the relevant international treaties.” However, the Commission referred to what it called “factual differences” between said case and the present case, and mentioned that under a “comprehensive analysis of the Court's pronouncements on the subject in the Inter-American System, the exclusion of the statute of limitations has gone beyond the assumptions of applicability enshrined in international treaties, providing more relevance, in some cases, to the rights of the victims or their relatives to know the truth of what happened and to obtain justice and reparation.” 115. The Commission considered as a basis of its request, the fact that “the various violations to the right to life and personal integrity occurred as a consequence of a series of actions and omissions that occurred between April 12 and 23, 1993, without the possibility of determining one single factor that caused the suffering and subsequent death of Mr. Vera Vera[; said] actions and omissions were committed by various police, ministerial, and judicial authorities, as well as by medical personnel[.]” It indicated that the “possible nature of the specific role and level of responsibility could not be established with certainty in the framework of the present international proceeding.” On the other hand, it also noted that in the present case, there were “various elements that allowed for the determination of the severity of the violation[.]” Lastly, it argued that “the passage of time that made the statute of limitation applicable in the present case, occurred as a consequence of clear negligence.” 116. The Court will analyze the arguments of the Inter-American Commission, which basically consist of the following points: a) the nonapplicability of the statute of limitations has followed even in cases that do not relate to gross violations of human rights; b) seriousness of the violations in this case; c) the chain of events and level of involvement of different authorities makes it impossible to establish with certainty the responsibilities in this international process, to which the investigation should be handled domestically; d) time passed because of the negligence of State authorities, and e) the need for a review trial of the rights of the accused and the rights of the victims or their families. 117. In the first place, regarding point a), the Court has noted that in criminal cases, the statute of limitations causes the lapse of time to terminate the right to bring action for punishment and, as a general rule, it sets a restriction on the punishing authority of the State to prosecute and punish defendants for unlawful conduct.124 As noted by the Commission, the Court 124 Cf. Case of Albán Cornejo et al. V. Ecuador, supra note 38, para. 111, and Case of Ibsen Cárdenas and Ibsen Peña V. Bolivia, supra note 94, para. 207. 45