24 the Amnesty Decree Law over international law.” “In 1994, the Appeals Courts and the trial courts started a trend towards directly applying international law.” “The issue here is not only the Amnesty Decree Law but also the statute of limitations for crimes against humanity or war crimes, because the Court has been gradually leaving aside the Decree Law [...] and has been increasingly applying the statute of limitations instead.” d) Statement of Jean Pierre Matus-Acuña, expert proposed by the Chilean State According to the expert witness, during the first years in which the American Convention was in force “and until well into 1998 [...], the decisions of the Supreme Court in most of the cases submitted to it applied self-amnesty Decree Law No. 2.191 restrictively, explaining that its purpose was to prevent the events from being investigated […] in order to maintain public peace under the terms of such Decree Law. However, even at that time, the doctrine of the Court was not uniform, and it made a radical shift in 1998 towards the non-application of Decree Law [No.] 2.191, that is, through procedural artifices that have made it possible to carry out judicial investigations, establish the events investigated, and identify and punish those responsible, either recognizing [...] the conflict existing between this Decree Law and the democratic system and the human rights treaties in force in Chile.” In fact, a decision of September 30, 1994 “laid the legal foundations for rendering the Amnesty Decree Law invalid in the Chilean system.” “According to the main whereas clauses of such judgment, the higher courts of justice in Chile have tended to favor the Treaties over the domestic law[.] [A]s far as human rights are concerned, a judge must, in interpreting the Treaties, always have in mind their ultimate purpose, which is to protect the rights of human beings.” “Thus, there is complete harmony between the law of treaties in force in Chile in connection with human rights and its Constitution. In addition, laws are valid to the extent that they are observed and human rights are safeguarded, so the Court concludes that crimes of kidnappingdisappearance which amount to serious violations of the Geneva Conventions are not susceptible of amnesty pursuant to the Chilean domestic law.” “Unfortunately, at that time the prevailing criterion of the Supreme Court favored a more or less flexible application of the Amnesty Decree Law, so this decision was reversed on October 26, 1995, and the case was dismissed on August 19, 1998, just before the Court changed its doctrine.” “In fact, by looking closely at the case law on amnesty […], it can be seen that the Supreme Court has both expressly and implicitly rejected in fact and in law the application of Amnesty Decree Law [No.] 2.191 in the most serious cases of violations of rights in Chile during the military dictatorship. This has been so on some rare occasions since 1990, but increasingly and consistently since 1998.” “Pursuant to this trend installed in the Supreme Court, 300 decisions of the Appeals Court of Santiago have convicted the authors of serious human rights violations, rendering the Amnesty Decree Law ineffective in fact and in law. According to him, “what we have in Chile [...] is a written piece of paper containing a resolution issued by the de facto government, a number and some whereas clauses, which we call the Amnesty Decree Law, but it is virtually inexistent as a rule in force in Chile [...], since the courts systematically ignore it.”