51 as “a mere formality condemned beforehand to be unsuccessful.”194 In this regard, the Tribunal has established that “each state action in the investigation process, as well as the investigation in its totality, shall be oriented toward a specific purpose, the determination of the truth and the investigation, persecution, capture, trial, and if it were the case, the punishment of those responsible for the acts.”195 B.1. Duty to initiate an investigation ex officio 154. The Inter-American Commission argued that “the investigation into the [alleged] forced disappearance of Rainer Ibsen Cárdenas and José Luís Ibsen Peña begun on April 26, 2000, as the result of a request filed by Rebeca Ibsen Castro in representation of her family, added to a criminal complaint regarding the disappearance of José Carlos Trujillo Oroza” (supra para. 140). According to the Commission, “this means that for approximately 28 years, the State […]did not initiate an ex officio investigation of the facts, despite the fact that the victims appeared on the list of disappeared persons attached to the impeachment trial against Hugo Banzer in 1979.” 155. The Court has already indicated and developed in this Judgment that whenever there are reasonable grounds for believing that a person has been subjected to a forced disappearance, an investigation ex officio shal lbe undertaken, without delay, in a serious, impartial and effective manner (supra para. 65). This investigation must be carried out by all available legal means and must be oriented to determine the truth, as well as the persecution, apprehension, prosecution and punishment of all intelectual and material perpetrators, especially when state agents are or may be involved. However, the investigation and the proceeding must have an objective and be assumed by the States as their own juridical duty and not as a simple step taken by private interests.196 In cases of forced disappearance of persons, the formal complaint regarding the facts does not fall exclusively on the next of kin of the victims.197 156. The Tribunal considers it to be convenient to point out, prior to analyzing the State’s compliance with the duty to initiate an investigation ex officio, that in the State’s answer to the application it referred to several activities carried out by the “National Commission for Investigation of Forced Disappearances”198 between 1982 y 1984 directed to, among other things, search for the remains of Mr. Rainer Ibsen Cárdenas. Based on the foregoing, the State maintained that the statements of the representatives regarding the State's 194 Cf. Case of Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras. Merits, supra note 14, para. 177; Case of Radilla Pacheco v. Mexico, supra note 8, para. 139, and Case of Chitay Nech et al. v. Guatemala, supra note 6, para. 192. 195 Cf. Case of Cantoral-Huamaní and García-Santa Cruz v. Peru. Preliminary Objection, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of July 10, 2007. Series C No. 167, para. 131, and Case of Kawas Fernández v. Honduras, supra note 11, para. 101, and Case of Radilla Pacheco v. Mexico, supra note 8, para. 192. 196 Cf. Case of Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras. Merits, supra note 14, para. 177; Case of Radilla Pacheco v. Mexico, supra note 8, para. 129, and Case of Chitay Nech et al. v. Guatemala, supra note 6, para. 192. 197 198 Cf. Case of Radilla Pacheco v. Mexico, supra note 8, para. 197. According to the evidence in the case file, the name of this authority was “National Commission for the Investigation of Disappeared Citizens”. It was created by presidentical decree on October 28, 1982 and disolved on 1984. Cf. Supreme Decree No. 19.241 of the Constitutional President of the Republic, of October 25, 1982 (case file of appendixes to the application, appendix 26, folios 2333 and 2334).