261. In its final written arguments, the representative also requested that the Court
order that the State take the following actions:
a)
“The presentation, within six months of the promulgation of the judgment [of the
Inter-American Court], of a state policy on the violation of human rights and
guarantees during the State terrorism,” which “should consist in affirmative, concrete
and efficacious actions that would foster a substantive change in eliminating the
structural impunity in this area.”286
b)
The implementation of a “public, visible and continuing campaign,” to “encourage
those persons who possess information on the location of the remains and the burial
places to provide it, ensuring confidentiality, security, and protection to eliminate any
reprisal by those responsible for the commission of crimes against humanity.
c)
The determination of the obligation of “the Presidency and the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs to promote, without more bureaucracy, and to obtain the declassification of
documents in the hands of foreign States and their intelligence agencies, particularly,
the United States of America, of repressive activities in [Uruguay] during the period
from 1968 to 1985.”
d)
The urging, by “the President […], as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces,
[…] in a public act for his subordinates to furnish all the information and archives
relating to the military proceedings and operations on the disappearances and
extrajudicial executions during the period 1968 to 1985.”287
262. The State, with respect to the request in the brief with petitions and motions on
the access to archives, underscored “the creation of the Judicial Archives of the Military
Justice in the area of the judiciary that contain approximately three thousand files on
the proceedings before the Military Justice during the dictatorship; and that “the archive
of the Secretariat of Human Rights for the Recent Past, in which may be found the
documents obtained and analyzed by the Peace Commission, is at the disposal of the
judiciary, victims, families and their legal representatives.”288
263. The Court notes that the request of the Commission and the representative that
the “judicial apparatus be strengthened” was expressed in general terms and not limited
to the Office of the Special Prosecutor with respect to which orders have already been
given. However, the Court considers that it does not have sufficient elements that would
permit it to determine and order actions regarding the organization and functioning of
the judiciary. However, it urges the State to adopt the relevant legislative,
compliance of the existing legislation in the area of access to the archives and to information.” In its final
written arguments, the representative indicated that, in the context of this measure of reparation, the Ministry
of Defense be required to “maximize the procedure to obtain the operative archives of the SID and the OCOA,
the main institutions in the repression and coordination.”
The representative requested that the public policy that it requested “go beyond the persons who are
in the institutions that are responsible.” It also asked that the Executive Branch be ordered to “present an
annual report to the General Assembly of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay on the progress and obstacles that
have been encountered in the implementation of such policy.”
286
It added the request that the President of the Republic be ordered “to annually inform the General
Assembly of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay on the status of compliance of this urging.
287
Moreover, the State recalled that the Inter-American Court, in the Gelman case, considered that the
State “has been complying” with the order to adopt measures to “guarantee technical and systematized access
to information on the serious violations of human rights that occurred during the dictatorship that are in the
national archives.”
288
68