be represented by the labor public defender’s office (Procuraduría del Trabajo), which operates in the regional offices of the Secretariat of Labor located in La Ceiba and Puerto Lempira. 19. The State asserts that most of the judicial public employees of the department of Gracias a Dios speak the Miskitu language. While the procedures are all written in Spanish, which is the official language of Honduras, interpreters are provided where required. With respect to the requirement of having legal counsel, the State indicates that the Labor Code establishes that the parties may act on their own, without the participation of counsel, in non-appealable proceedings and in conciliation hearings. 20. With respect to the petitioners’ arguments on the geographic difficulties or high transport costs for the petitioners to gain access to administrative and judicial proceedings, it argues that it is a generalized and very subjective assessment on their part, it recognizes that there may have been transportation difficulties, but in no way does it accept that it maintains a factual or legal obstacle in place.22 The State asserts that to keep the Miskitu from moving to the cities of Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, the Secretariat for Labor and Social Security, through the Social Security Bureau, has appointed qualified staff in the regional offices in La Ceiba and Gracias a Dios, where administrative claims may be filed. It adds that to keep the persons affected from having to go to Tegucigalpa to establish the compensation, they are evaluated at the Hospital of Puerto Lempira, department of Gracias a Dios; if the company’s domicile is in the Bay Islands or La Ceiba, the evaluation will be done in the cities closest to its jurisdiction.23 21. The State asserts that the persons affected and individually identified by the petitioners had access to the administration of justice, in both the administrative and judicial forums, yet the proceedings did not conclude due to omission and abandonment of them. To this end, the State submits information to show that the alleged victims and their next-of-kin had recourse to the offices of the Secretariat of Labor in Puerto Lempira, La Ceiba, and Roatán, but did not follow up on the proceedings they themselves initiated. It states that it has carried out its duties indicated in the legal proceeding and cites specific cases 24 of compensation paid for fatal accident.25 In addition, it notes that the Secretariat for Labor has a record of 57 cases on which conciliation was reached from 1997 to 2001. 26 22. It adds that the Miskitu divers were provided services correctly, they were referred in timely fashion to the Medical Evaluation Unit of the Secretariat for Labor, the labor compensation due was calculated, the employers were summonsed, a record was made of the conciliatory agreements between the parties when they were reached, and, if the employers did not appear, they were given the certifications needed to file a judicial action. 27 22 State’s brief of observations, May 29, 2008, p. 14. 23 24 Roger Alfred Gómez, Paulino Blakaus Emos, Alí Herrera Ayanco, Mármol Williams García, José Martínez López, Alfredo Brown Manister, Ramón Allen Felman, and Alfredo Francisco Brown. State’s brief of observations, February 23, 2005, p. 22. 25 The calculations of compensation prepared by the Occupational Health and Safety Inspectors at the regional offices at La Ceiba, Puerto Lempira , and the departments of Atlántida and Gracias a Dios are done at the beginning of the administrative proceeding only with the data provided by the workers prior to a medical evaluation. The calculation of compensation is based on the table established by the Labor Code, taking into account the harm suffered by the worker. State’s brief of observations, February 23, 2005, p. 21. 26 State’s brief of observations submitted to the IACHR, February 23, 2005, p. 22. 27 State’s brief of observations submitted to the IACHR, February 23, 2005, p. 8.