Vera Vera and to identify those responsible has lapsed under the statute of limitations in Ecuador.”123 113. Notwithstanding, in the application, Commission requested the Court to order the State “[t]o carry out a prompt, diligent, and effective investigation, and to punish those responsible for the violations detailed in the […] application, including those State employees who, given their actions and omissions, contributed to the denial of justice,” without arguing why this is appropriate in the present case. In this regard, during the public hearing (supra para. 8), the Court asked the Commission to establish the basis for said request. The Commission noted that, notwithstanding the possibility of extending its response in writing, it was “important to take into consideration accountability or the establishment of responsibility from different perspectives[, which could be] administrative or criminal[,...] depending a bit on the different moments and serious shortcomings that the Commission[,...] the representatives, and the State] have presented in their various briefs.” Moreover, it mentioned that “in various cases, the Court has noted [that] concepts like the statute of limitation can constitute, in specific cases, an obstacle to the investigation and ascertainment of the facts in violation of human rights.” Even though in the case of Albán Cornejo, the Court […] explained that because it does not necessarily involve an imprescriptible crime under international law, it did not follow to order the relevant investigation[,]” it noted that recently in the last Monitoring of Compliance Order in the case of Bámaca Velásquez v. Guatemala, “the Court introduced a position regarding a case in review that it must be done to the judicial authorities when there is a link between, on the one hand, the rights of the next of kin of the victims of human rights violations to know what occurred, and on the other hand, the possible procedural guarantees of the accused,” and that it should be done on a case by case basis. The Commission noted that given that in this case no investigation carried out, "the specific nature of the facts cannot be understood, if the responsibility falls on the detention, on the bullet, in medical negligence, or whether there might be an act of torture by omission at hand,” namely, “what happened is not known nor are the levels of responsibility known so as to prevent a priori that the investigations be carried out.” In this regard, it claimed that “at minimum, an investigation is required that would allow for clarification and [that] it falls on the domestic judicial authorities to consider the possible procedural guarantees in terms of figures such as statute of limitations or non bis in idem, and others.” 114. In its final written arguments, the Commission noted that pursuant to the constant jurisprudence of the bodies of the Inter-American System, “the invocation of procedural concepts such as statute of limitations is not admissible, in order to avoid the obligation to investigate and punish serious human rights violations.” According to the Commission, “this concept has been applied to both contexts of widespread and systematic violations, as to certain violations that, in the particular circumstances of the case, are of a significant level of gravity.” It indicated that, recently, in the mentioned Order in the case of Bámaca Velásquez v. Guatemala (supra para. 113), the Court developed some guidelines to consider in cases in which there may be tension between the procedural rights of potential defendants and the rights of 123 Expert statement of Mr. Manuel Ramiro Aguilar Torres (case file of Merits, tomo I, folio 590). 44

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