Punishment of Crimes against. Internationally Protected Persons (Article 2.2), and the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons (Article 3). 20. They argue that the State violated the obligation to respect rights in relation to the right to judicial protection. They say that the Supreme Court is applying passage-of-time effects to crimes that, owing to their seriousness, are not covered by the statute of limitations. In that connection, they say that the rule on the partial lapse of the statutory time period is envisaged in the Criminal Code, under the title “Extinction of Criminal Liability, and that said concept is only applicable to crimes covered by a statute of limitations. They argue, therefore, that for the partial statute of limitations to apply, the crime involved must be subject to limitation, which excludes the possibility of its application to crimes against humanity because they are not covered by the statute of limitations. Thus, the decisions are contradictory given that, despite acknowledging that the offenses involved are crimes against humanity, it recognize passage-of-time effects by applying partial statutory limitations. 21. The petitioners say that the facts alleged in the petition refer to crimes against humanity in which the purpose was the disappearance or execution of individuals by a state structure. They argued that granting benefits of any sort to those guilty of such crimes based on considerations to do with the time elapsed would mean those individuals obtaining an advantage from their own unlawful conduct in which they intentionally engaged in order to ensure their impunity. With regard to those cases in which the facts concern alleged victims who are still missing, the petitioners argue that since kidnapping is a continuing crime, there is no date from which to calculate the period of limitations and, in turn, the partial lapse of the statutory time period. 22. As for exhaustion of domestic remedies, they argue that no possible remedies exist because the decision comes from the Supreme Court and, therefore, is final. Specific cases 1. Case of Juan Luis Rivera Matus and family 23. In the complaint filed on January 28, 2008 by the AFDD and others, the petitioners say that on November 6, 1975, Juan Luis Rivera Matus, a communist and trade union leader, was detained in a public place in the city of Santiago as he was leaving the offices of the company Chilectra, where he worked, by agents of the Joint Command, and taken to the headquarters of the Colina Antiaircraft Artillery Regiment, an Air Force unit, where the clandestine detention center known as Remo Cero operated. There, army personnel interrogated him under torture, applying electrical current to his body and subjecting him to other forms of duress, resulting in his death. The following day, the same individuals went there to remove the corpse. The remains of the alleged victim were found on March 13, 2001, following excavations carried out at Fort Arteaga, an Army facility, as part of a judicial investigation. A death certificate was issued on June 5, 2002, that recorded the date of death as March 13, 2001. The National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation reportedly reached the firm conclusion that Juan Luis Rivera Matus was a qualified victim. 24. The petitioners say that on the day that the events occurred relatives of the alleged victim filed an application for relief (amparo) with the Santiago Appellate Court, which was rejected after the Ministry of the Interior issued a report denying the alleged victim's detention. 25. According to the petition, on December 1, 1975, the alleged victim's spouse, Olga Sanchez Rivas, filed a complaint with the First Criminal Court in and for Santiago, which proceeding was provisionally dismissed on July 14, 1976. The petitioners say that on June 28, 1996, the National Reparation and Reconciliation Corporation asked for the preliminary inquiry to be reopened, which request was complied with on August 12, 1996. According to the petitioners, on February 28, 1997, the case was again provisionally dismissed, a decision that became final on November 24, 1998. 26. They say that on May 25, 2001, Mr. Rivera's children filed a criminal complaint, and the judicial investigation was again reopened. In the course of those proceedings, on May 4, 2004, Major (r) Álvaro 5