26 to the investigation and, where appropriate, punishment of all persons found responsible. 98 As the Inter-American Court has observed, this provision of the Convention makes it the legislative obligation of States to formally and materially repeal provisions that are in violation of the Convention. In this regard, the Court has stated the following: Since it ratified the American Convention on August 21, 1990, the State has kept Decree Law No. 2.191 in force for sixteen years, overtly violating the obligations set forth in said Convention. The fact that such Decree Law has not been applied by the Chilean courts in several cases since 1998 is a significant advance, and the Court appreciates it, but it does not suffice to meet the requirements of Article 2 of the Convention in the instant case. Firstly because, as it has been stated in the preceding paragraphs, Article 2 imposes the legislative obligation to annul all legislation which is in violation of the Convention, and secondly, because the criterion of the domestic courts may change, and they may decide to reinstate the application of a provision which remains in force under the domestic legislation. 99 87. Thus, Article 2 requires that there be no provisions in force that violate the American Convention, irrespective of what the case law of the domestic courts may be. The Commission concurs with the Court’s observation that the criterion of the domestic courts can change; they could begin to apply Decree-Law 2191, since that law is still in effect in the domestic legal system. As a result, the domestic courts could still order dismissal of a case against perpetrators of massive violations of human rights committed under the Chilean dictatorship. The IACHR has noted that court rulings that dismiss these type of cases based on the Chilean amnesty law “not only aggravate the situation of impunity, but also definitively violate the right to justice to which the members of the victims' families are entitled: to identify the persons responsible and to establish the responsibilities borne and the penalties to be paid by those persons, and to obtain legal compensation from the guilty parties.” 100 88. In its recent concluding observations regarding Chile, the United Nation Committee against Torture wrote the following: The Committee notes that the Chilean courts, and in particular the Supreme Court, are handing down judgements in which they rule that the Amnesty Decree-Law (under which people who committed human rights violations between 11 September 1973 and 10 March 1978 cannot be punished) is inapplicable, citing international human rights instruments as the legal basis for that finding. Nonetheless, the Committee feels that, in line with the ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the case of Almonacid Arellanos y otros (sic) of 26 September 2006, the fact that this decree-law remains in force leaves the application of the amnesty up to the judgement of the domestic courts. The Committee has learned of recent Supreme Court decisions that appear to take the existence of that decree-law into account, particularly in reducing the applicable penalties for serious crimes committed during the dictatorship (art. 2). The Committee recommends that, in keeping with its earlier recommendations, the State party abrogate the Amnesty Decree-Law. The Committee draws the State party’s attention to paragraph 5 of its general comment No. 2 on the implementation of article 2 of the Convention by States parties, wherein it considers that amnesties or other impediments which preclude or indicate unwillingness to provide prompt and fair prosecution and punishment of perpetrators of torture or ill-treatment violate the principle of non-derogability. The Committee also recommends that all necessary steps be taken to ensure that cases of torture and other 98 I/A Court H.R., Case of Almonacid Arellano et al. v. Chile. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of September 26, 2006. Series C No. 154. I/A Court H.R., Case of Almonacid Arellano et al. v. Chile. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of September 26, 2006. Series C No. 154, para. 121. 99 100 IACHR, Report No. 34/96, Cases 11.228, 11.229, 11.231 and 11282, Chile, October 15, 1996, para. 106.