exercise of those rights, and prevent the annulment or amendment of laws that protect them. 251 222. In this case, the central issue - and this is what the Court has focused on– was the examination of alleged human rights violations stemming from the decision taken by the National Congress on December 8, 2004. The Court did not examine the compatibility of a specific provision with the American Convention, since that was not the subject of this case. Moreover, the representatives did not provide sufficient elements to demonstrate that the violations arose from a problem stemming directly from the text of the laws, and consequently it is not possible to order an amendment of provisions that are not directly related to the violations declared in this case. Therefore, in the circumstances of this case, it is not pertinent to order the adoption, amendment or adaptation of specific provisions of domestic law. C. Compensation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages 1. Pecuniary damage Arguments of the Commission and the parties 223. The Commission asked the Court to order the State to “[p]ay the victims the professional wages and/or social benefits they failed to receive from the time of their dismissal up until the moment when they are reinstated or else until the alternative indemnification described in the previous recommendation is paid.” 224. The representatives requested that the State be ordered to pay “monetary compensation for damages based on the amount of the salaries that the judges did not receive and the time elapsed since the violation was committed until effective compliance with the Judgment. In the case of the judges, this implies the salary (salary plus social benefits) that they did not receive due to their dismissal.” The calculation of this compensation would be “based on the judges’ salary history, on the number of years that have elapsed since their dismissal and up until the issuance of the Judgment.” 225. The representatives indicated that the calculation of back wages should take into account the salaries that the victims did not receive until the effective implementation of the Judgment. They considered that calculating the amount up until the issuance of the 2008 Constitution, was a proposal that limited the victims’ rights, since the State had offered friendly settlements on three occasions, which were never made effective, suggesting that this was a strategy to delay the process. Furthermore, the representatives pointed out that, if the State had acknowledged its violation in a timely manner, the period for calculating the compensation might have been shorter and the former judges might even have been reinstated in time. The representatives argued that, even assuming that after the issuance of the 2008 Constitution the victims in this case had become Judges of the National Court of Justice of transition, and had been in office until 2012, their rights would not have disappeared under the 2008 Constitution, as the State affirmed. 226. The representatives also argued that the State cannot change its adopted position for its own benefit, and should therefore accept that it had already acknowledged the amounts owed by issuing certificates of settlement to the victims as an offer of payment and that the amount due was calculated up to 2011, the date on which said document was issued. The victims’ representatives consider that these documents have major significance in terms of 251 Cf. Case of Castillo Petruzzi et al. v. Peru. Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of May 30, 1999. Series C No. 52, para. 207, and Case of Mendoza et al. v. Argentina, para. 323. 64