state concerned the opportunity to resolve disputes within its own legal framework. When domestic remedies are unavailable as a matter of fact or law, however, the requirement that they be exhausted is excused. 4 Article 46(2) of the Convention specifies that this exception applies: if the legislation of the state concerned fails to afford due process for the protection of the right allegedly violated; if the party alleging violation has been hindered in his or her access to domestic remedies; or if there has been unwarranted delay in the issuance of a final judgment. Consequently, when a petitioner alleges that he or she is unable to prove exhaustion, Article 37 of the Commission's Regulations establishes that the burden then shifts to the Government to demonstrate which specific domestic remedies remain to be exhausted and offer effective relief for the harm alleged. 25. As set forth above, in the instant case the petitioners argue that they invoked the remedies provided for under law, but that it has been impossible to exhaust them. They invoke each of the three exceptions set forth in Article 46(2) of the Convention. First, with respect to the availability of due process within the domestic legal system, the petitioners allege that the Law of National Reconciliation constitutes a potential impediment to the prosecution of the perpetrators. 5 As the petitioners have not demonstrated that the application of this Law has actually been sought, or how it has otherwise affected the specific case under study, this allegation need not be further addressed at this stage. Second, with respect to the question of access to domestic remedies, the petitioners allege that acts of intimidation before, during and subsequent to the massacre prevented those affected from seeking judicial protection or recourse. Further, they allege that when some of the victims sought judicial protection against threats by soldiers in the period prior to the massacre they were fined and turned away. The petitioners argue that the denunciations initiated by the survivors in 1993 have not been met with the measures of investigation required, and that the pertinent authorities have hindered and delayed the measures they have invoked, such as the exhumations, and requests for ballistics and other evidence. Third, the petitioners allege that there has been an unwarranted delay in the issuance of a final judgment by the Guatemalan judiciary. 26. The State maintains, first, that its authorities are seized of the matter in the form of process 291-94 before the Public Ministry, and processes 391-93 and 344-95 before the Court of First Instance of Cobán, Alta Verapaz. Second, the State asserts that the CEH is playing an important role in the investigation of past abuses and attribution of institutional responsibility. With respect to the questions of access to remedies and delay in obtaining a final determination raised by the petitioners, the State has not expressly responded to their assertion that victims seeking judicial protection against threats prior to the massacre were turned away. Nor has it challenged their allegations that the survivors were driven from the area of Plan de Sánchez by fear, and that this same fear prevented them from seeking judicial recourse for eleven years. Further, the State has provided no information as to why the criminal investigation first invoked in 1993 remains in its initial stage. 27. The Commission finds that the survivors and family members of the victims were prevented from invoking domestic remedies for a period of years due to the fear which affected them and the general community. The rule of exhaustion of domestic remedies does not require the invocation of remedies where this would place the physical integrity of the petitioner at risk, or where this offers no possibility of success. 6 In addition to the information in the record, Commission reports from the period under study document the vulnerability of populations in rural areas to human rights abuses, and the resulting climate of insecurity, and further indicate that, at the time of the events denounced, the judiciary "had been stripped of 4 See IACtHR, Exceptions to the Exhaustion of Domestic Remedies (Art. 46.1, 46.2.a and 46.2.b American Convention on Human Rights), Advisory Opinion OC-11/90 of August 10, 1990, Ser. A No. 11, para. 17. 5 The Law of National Reconciliation provides that the extinction of criminal responsibility may be applied to: political crimes against the State, the institutional order and public administration; common crimes "directly, objectively, intentionally and causally" linked to political crimes; and common crimes perpetrated with the aim of preventing, impeding or pursuing political and related common crimes. The Law establishes that amnesty shall not apply to the crimes of genocide, torture, forced disappearance, and those with respect to which there is no statute of limitations or for which amnesty is prohibited under internal law or Guatemala’s international treaty obligation. 6 See, OC-11/90, supra, para. 33; see, e.g., Report 6/94, Case 10.772, El Salvador, published in, Annual Report of the IACHR 1993, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.85, Doc. 9 rev., Feb. 11, 1994, p. 181, 185. 5