rights violations until March 1, 1985 would be investigated, tried and sanctioned. This was facilitated by the position of the Executive branch, which systematically impeded the criminal prosecution of serious violations of human rights perpetrated by military and police officers during the military dictatorship. What distinguishes this case is that the current head of the Executive branch, President Tabaré Vásquez, responding to the procedure established by the Amnesty Law, permitted the criminal investigation of the disappearance of Maria Claudia Gelman to go forward by excluding this case from the protection of the Amnesty Law. Nonetheless, the judiciary applied the Amnesty Law to this case, in spite of the Presidential directive, and domestic remedies were exhausted with the issuance of the decision of the Uruguayan Court of Appeals to file the case on October 19, 2005. 36. On June 19, 2002, Dr. Gonzalez Gonzalez, the legal representative of Mr. Juan Gelman, filed a complaint in the Fourth Criminal Court for the kidnapping and disappearance of his daughter in law, Maria Claudia Gelman. The complainants presented evidence and alleged that the case should not be covered by the Amnesty law, since they occurred as a result of the personal intentions of the military officers, far from the repressive context that was being carried out as State policy. The State’s response at the time, articulated by the then President of Uruguay, Jorge Battle, and consolidated in a judicial decision, was that these facts were covered by the Amnesty Law and, therefore, it was appropriate to file the case. 37. Subsequently, Dr. Gonzalez Gonzalez sought to have the case reopened based on the presentation of new evidence to the Court. The Judge requested the Executive branch, under the Presidency of Tabaré Vásquez, to give his opinion as to whether the facts of the case were included or not under the effects of the Amnesty law. The Executive branch responded that the facts were not covered by Article 1 of Law 15.848, the Amnesty Law. Nonetheless, this decision of the Executive branch was not sufficient to permit the investigation and trial of these serious crimes to go forward. Despite the fact that a request to file the case had been denied by the Judge at First Instance, the Court of Appeals decided that the case should be filed. 38. The State’s response to the petition (supra para. 20) was that, under the administration of President Tabaré Vasquez, it was conducting a serious and thorough investigation of the Gelman case and seeking the exhumation of Maria Claudia Gelman’s remains. While the good intentions of the Uruguayan Government are worthy of recognition, and currently both Argentine and Uruguayan Courts are in the process of investigating the operations of “Plan Condor”, it cannot be ignored that the Uruguayan judiciary filed the specific case of the disappearance of Maria Claudia Gelman on October 19, 2005. That case has not been reopened. Consequently, the Commission considers that the requirement of the exhaustion of domestic remedies, stipulated in Article 46(1) (a) of the American Convention, has been met by the petitioners in this case and that the State’s argument is not persuasive on this point. 10 2. Time limit for the presentation of the petition 39. Article 46(1)(b) of the American Convention provides that the petition must be lodged within a period of six months from the date on which the petitioners were notified of the final judgment that exhausted domestic remedies. In the instant petition, the Commission has determined that the petitioners exhausted domestic remedies. 40. The decision to file the case was taken by the Uruguayan Court of Appeals on October 19, 2005. The decision was notified personally to Mr. Gelman’s lawyer, Dr. José Luis Gonzalez, on November 9, 2005. The petition was filed with the Commission on May 8, 2006. The Commission concludes that the petition was presented within the six-month time limit set in Article 46(1)(b) of the Convention. 3. Duplication of proceedings and res judicata at the international level 10 See IACHR, Report Nº 29/92 of October 2, 1992, para. 35 (“The law in question [Law 15.848] has the intended effect of dismissing all criminal proceedings involving past human rights violations. With that, the law eliminates any judicial possibility of a serious and impartial investigation designed to establish the crimes denounced and to identify their authors, accomplices, and accessories after the fact.”) 9