-53137. When State-held information is refused, the State must guarantee that there is a simple, prompt and effective recourse that permits determining whether there has been a violation of the right of the person requesting information and, if applicable, that the corresponding body is ordered to disclose the information. In this context, the recourse must be simple and prompt, bearing in mind that, in this regard, promptness in the disclosure of the information is essential. According to the provisions of Articles 2 and 25(2)(b) of the Convention, if the State Party to the Convention does not have a judicial recourse to protect the right effectively, it must establish one. 138. Regarding the alleged violation of Article 25 of the Convention, Chile merely indicated that “the petitioners filed the application for protection of constitutional guarantees without obtaining results that satisfied their claims,” and explained the reforms carried out as of November 1999 which, inter alia, established a “specific [judicial] recourse concerning access to information.” 139. The Court considers that, in the instant case, Chile failed to guarantee an effective judicial recourse that was decided in accordance with Article 8(1) of the Convention and which resulted in a ruling on the merits of the dispute concerning the request for Stateheld information; in other words, a ruling on whether the Foreign Investment Committee should have provided access to the requested information. 140. The Court appreciates the efforts made by Chile in 1999 when it established a special judicial recourse to protect access to public information. Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that the violations in this case occurred before the State made this progress in its legislation, so that the State’s argument that the alleged victims in this case “could have filed it” is inappropriate since, at the time of the facts of this case, the said recourse had not been established. 141. The Court considers that the three persons who filed the judicial recourse before the Santiago Court of Appeal are victims. They are Marcel Claude Reyes, Arturo Longton Guerrero and Sebastián Cox Urrejola because, although the Court has determined that the right of freedom of thought and expression has been violated only in the case of Marcel Claude Reyes and Arturo Longton Guerrero (supra paras. 69 to 71 and 103), the Chilean judicial body should have issued a ruling if the recourse was inadmissible in the case of one of the appellants owing to active legal standing. 142. Based on the above, the Court concludes that the State violated the right to judicial protection embodied in Article 25(1) of the American Convention, in relation to Article 1(1) thereof, to the detriment of Marcel Claude Reyes, Arturo Longton Guerrero and Sebastián Cox Urrejola, by failing to guarantee them a simple, prompt and effective recourse that would protect them from actions of the State that they alleged violated their right of access to State-held information. 143. The Court also concludes that the said decision of the Santiago Court of Appeal declaring the application for protection inadmissible did not comply with the guarantee that it should be duly justified. Accordingly, the State violated the right to judicial guarantees embodied in Article 8(1) of the Convention, in relation to Article 1(1) thereof, to the detriment of Marcel Claude Reyes, Arturo Longton Guerrero and Sebastián Cox Urrejola. 144. The alleged violation of Articles 8 and 25 of the Convention regarding the regulation of the formal procedure of processing the judicial recourse for the protection of fundamental rights (supra para. 109(b)), was not alleged by the representative at the