103 required by the judiciary may be considered an attempt to privilege the “clandestinity of the Executive branch” and to perpetuate impunity. Likewise, when a punishable fact is being investigated, the decision to define the information as secret and to refuse to submit it can never depend exclusively on a State body whose members are deemed responsible for committing the illegal act. “It is not, therefore, a matter of denying that the Government must continue to safeguard official secrets, but of stating that in such a paramount issue its actions must be subject to control by other branches of the State or by a body that ensures respect for the principle of the division or powers...” Thus, what is incompatible with the Rule of Law and effective judicial protection “is not that there are secrets, but rather that these secrets are outside legal control, that is to say, that the authority has areas in which it is not responsible because they are not juridically regulated and are therefore outside any control system…”258 182. This refusal by the Ministry of National Defense to supply all the documents requested by the courts, resorting to official secret, constitutes an obstruction of justice. e) Murder of a police investigator; harassment and threats against legal operators, police investigators, witnesses, members of the Myrna Mack Foundation and of AVANCSO and the next of kin of Myrna Mack Chang 183. It has been proven that in Guatemala at the time of the facts there was a widespread situation of fear of cooperating in cases of elucidation of human rights violations, as those who cooperated suffered acts of intimidation, harassment, threats, and murders (supra para. 134.13). 184. It has also been deemed proven that certain judges have avoided hearing and ruling on this case (supra para. 134.100). In this regard, former judge Henry Monroy Andrino, in his testimony before the Court, stated that this attitude of the judges was primarily justified because members of the army and especially of the Presidential General Staff were involved, and that this circumstances made them fearful of suffering reprisals due to their actions to determine the responsibility of these persons in the criminal proceeding (supra para. 127.f). 185. In this regard, it has been established that former judge Henry Monroy Andrino issued the order for the trial to commence against the members of the high command of the Presidential General Staff, and from that moment on he suffered serious threats against his life and personal integrity and that of his family, for which reason he was forced to resign his position and leave Guatemala. Pursuant to the above, Henry Monroy Andrino (supra paras. 127.f and 134.100) stated before the Court that: from that moment on [when he issued the order to commence the proceeding] I began to suffer threats and acts of intimidation, threats over the phone. Various types of intimidation, among which I can highlight the fact that I was summoned to the office of the Secretary General of the Judiciary Body where he, verbally, warned me that I should be careful because the judges who dared to issue rulings against members of the Army suffered accidents. […] I began to feel fear regarding my physical safety, since as I mentioned in this specific case of the murder of anthropologist Myrna Mack there was a complete sequence of threats and acts of intimidation against legal operators, witnesses, members of the 258 Cf. application by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of June 19, 2001 (dossier on the merits and possible reparations, volume I, leaf 74).