suffering and anguish that the authorities' refusal to investigate caused them. The petitioners assert that Mr. Portugal's disappearance was an arbitrary deprivation of liberty, that he was denied his right to be brought before a judge without delay and that he was held incommunicado against his will, all of which constitutes cruel and inhuman treatment. B. The State 14. The State has stated that it “agrees with the petitioners that Mr. Portugal's disappearance cannot be denied. It has therefore taken appropriate measures to investigate the circumstances of this disappearance and to determine the corresponding criminal responsibility.”13 It notes in this regard that the Attorney General's Office is seeing to the corresponding criminal investigation, which is being conducted by the Office of the Third Superior Court Prosecutor in order to bring the guilty parties to trial. To reinforce the work of the Attorney General's Office, Panama created the Truth Commission to follow up on Mr. Portugal's case and all other cases of disappearance that took place during the military regime. The State also alleges that “from the investigations conducted, the persons responsible for Mr. Portugal's disappearances may, at the time the events occurred, have been members of the former National Guard.”14 Legal culpability has to be established in a legal process, conducted in accordance with the pertinent procedures and domestic law. 15. The State argues that the petition is inadmissible because the rule requiring exhaustion of domestic remedies has not been met and there are no exceptional grounds in this case to substantiate its admissibility when internal remedies have not been exhausted. The State contends that given the measures taken by the State to determine the circumstances of the disappearance and death of Mr. Portugal and to bring the guilty to justice, it cannot be argued that there has been an unwarranted delay in the judicial process. The State asserts that ever since the September 1999 discoveries, both the judicial and executive branches have worked to wrap up the proceedings necessary to provide the next of kin of the disappeared persons with effective justice. Since then, a series of proceedings and on-site inspections have been conducted and a number of statements have been taken. Arrests have been ordered, as have preventive measures against persons suspected of involvement in Mr. Portugal's disappearance. 16. The State alleges that the petitioners cannot insist, however, that without the evidence necessary to conduct an effective prosecution the State should nonetheless move judicial proceedings forward, without a stay being ordered. Temporary stays are ordered precisely to allow proceedings to resume as soon as the evidence emerges that allows those proceedings to move forward. Under international human rights agreements that Panama has ratified, it cannot definitively close cases that, under its own domestic laws, would have been closed under the statute of limitations because more than twenty years had elapsed since the commission of the crime. The Attorney General's Office has designated a permanent team of investigators from the National Police and from the Investigative Police Force [Policía Técnica Judicial]. 17. Concerning the remains unearthed at the site of the former barracks of the Second Infantry Company of Tocumen, when the IACHR began to process the case the State asserted that the remains were those of Mr. Portugal. It stated that testing done on the remains by a private firm, when compared to a sample obtained from one of the victim's brothers, had resulted in similar DNA. With that, a reopening of the criminal investigation was requested on August 30, 2000. Later, however, based on testing ordered by the Attorney General's Office the State asserted that the remains were not those of Mr. Portugal. It referred the matter to the Truth Commission, which confirmed that the results of the first test were correct. IV. ANALYSIS ON ADMISSIBILITY A. The Commission's competence ratione materiae, ratione personae, ratione loci and ratione temporis 13 See Observations from the State, November 29, 2001 p. 4. 14 Idem. 4