102 say, a minor procedure to be followed and the judge will assess what must be done if it truly is a secret and then how he will proceed, discretionally and discretely […] with that secret” (supra para. 127.j). 178. In this regard, the Court underlines that Guatemalan legislation - in Article 244 of the Criminal Procedures Code – sets forth a procedure by means of which the competent court or the judge controlling the investigation can privately examine documents whose secrecy is alleged, and establish whether said documents are useful for the case, whether he includes them in the proceeding, and how to authorize their disclosure to the parties, who must safeguard the secrecy of their content. Nevertheless, despite the fact that the competent courts requested several documents from the Ministry of National Defense based on that provision, the Ministry did not submit them, arguing that the information contained in the documents constituted official secret (supra paras. 134.93 and 134.94). 179. As the European Court of Human Rights has stated,256 in cases in which certain evidence is kept secret for reasons of public interest (such as national security), it is not for the international court to establish whether secrecy of the information is necessary or not, as generally this is for the national courts to decide. However, it is for the international court to determine whether the domestic proceeding respects and protects the interests of the parties. In this regard, the European Court pointed out that retaining important evidence arguing public interest, without notifying the judge in charge of the case, does not comply with the requirements of Article 6 of the European Convention,257 which is equivalent to Article 8 of the American Convention. 180. The Court deems that in cases of human rights violations, the State authorities cannot resort to mechanisms such as official secret or confidentiality of the information, or reasons of public interest or national security, to refuse to supply the information required by the judicial or administrative authorities in charge of the ongoing investigation or proceeding. 181. The Court shares the statement of the Inter-American Commission with respect to the following: [i]n the framework of a criminal proceeding, especially when it involves the investigation and prosecution of illegal actions attributable to the security forces of the State, there is a possible conflict of interests between the need to protect official secret, on the one hand, and the obligations of the State to protect individual persons from the illegal acts committed by their public agents and to investigate, try, and punish those responsible for said acts, on the other hand. […P]ublic authorities cannot shield themselves behind the protective cloak of official secret to avoid or obstruct the investigation of illegal acts ascribed to the members of its own bodies. In cases of human rights violations, when the judicial bodies are attempting to elucidate the facts and to try and to punish those responsible for said violations, resorting to official secret with respect to submission of the information 256 Cf. Eur. Court H.R., Dowsett v. the United Kingdom judgment of 24 June 2003, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 2003, paras. 43-44; Eur. Court H.R., Rowe and Davis v. the United Kingdom judgment of 16 February 2000, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 2000-II, paras. 62-63; and Eur. Court H.R., Edwards v. the United Kingdom judgment of 25 November 1992, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1992. p. 34, section 33. 257 Cf. Eur. Court H.R., Dowsett v. the United Kingdom, supra note 256, para. 43-44; and Eur. Court H.R., Rowe and Davis v. the United Kingdom, supra note 256, paras. 62-63.