70 care providers considered public servants.300 Specifically, in the instant case, the Court notes that the health care personnel had the obligation to provide I.V. with adequate, comprehensible and accessible information on her health situation, ensure her autonomous decision on the choice of the contraceptive methods that were most appropriate for her life project, and ensure that they obtained her informed consent if she had opted for a permanent surgical procedure, such as tubal ligation using the Pomeroy technique, in order to avoid a sterilization contrary to the State’s international obligations. 224. The Court will now make the corresponding determinations taking into account the dispute over the supposed verbal consent obtained during the peri-operative period for the performance of the tubal ligation. 225. The representative affirmed that I.V. was never consulted in a prior, free and informed manner with regard to the sterilization; rather, she found out that she had lost her reproductive capacity permanently the day after the procedure had been performed, when the resident doctor informed her301 (supra para. 68). Meanwhile, the State rejected this argument and indicated that I.V. had given her verbal consent during the peri-operative period.302 Consequently, there are Both Final decision No. 020/2002 and the 2003 Administrative Resolution considered the physician concerned to be a public servant. Cf. Final decision No. 020/2002 issued by the Legal Advisory Services Unit of the La Paz Departmental Health Service on July 25, 2002 (evidence file, volume XIV, annex 3 to the representative’s final arguments, folio 5771), and unnumbered Administrative Resolution issued by the Legal Advisory Services Unit of the La Paz Departmental Health Service on March 10, 2003 (evidence file, volume VII, annex 21 to the submission of the case, folios 2175 and 2176). 300 In her arguments, the representative considered the following probative elements: (i) the post-surgery evolution sheet of the patient’s medical record, which records and states that, on July 2, 2000, in other words one day after I.V.’s tubal ligation, “the patient was advised that the bilateral tubal ligation had been performed by clinical indication, and this was accepted by the patient on understanding that a future pregnancy would endanger her life” (supra para. 67); (ii) the consistent statements by I.V. throughout the domestic criminal proceedings and before this Court, indicating that, at no time was she consulted as to whether she accepted to submit to this surgical procedure (supra paras. 68 and 69); (iii) the statement of J.E., who affirmed that, as her husband, he signed the authorization for the caesarean section, but the doctors never came to find him and inform him about the tubal ligation, even though he had seen the doctor immediately after the operation; rather he found out about the procedure the following day; (iv) N.V., the daughter of I.V., stated that she heard that the doctors said that they did not have “to find out about what they had done to that woman [referring to the sterilization of I.V.”; (v) the disagreement, inconsistency, contradictions and inadequacies between the statements of the members of the medical team who were present when the caesarean section and tubal ligation were performed, and the position of I.V. and her husband, J.E., contradictions that were the grounds for the decisions of the Second Criminal Trial Court of La Paz and the Copacabana Criminal Court, concluding the lack of credibility of the existence of verbal consent. Cf. Affidavit prepared by Marco Vladimir Vargas Terrazas on April 28, 2016 (evidence file, volume XI, affidavits, folios 3930 and 3938); Statement made by J.E. on July 27, 2004, according to the record of the oral hearing issued by the Copacabana Trial Court (evidence file, volume XII, annex 1(c)) to the State’s final arguments, folios 4756 and 4757); Affidavit prepared by N.V. on April 22, 2016 (evidence file, volume XI, affidavits, folio 3910); Statement made by Corina Puente Cusimamani on November 13, 2002, according to the record of the oral hearing issued by the Second Trial Court of La Paz (evidence file, volume XIV, annex 1(a) to the State’s final arguments, folios 4115 and 4116); Statement made by Virginia Mercado on August 17, 2000, according to the medical record of the surgical procedure performed on I.V. issued by the Medical Audit Committee of the Women’s Hospital (evidence file, volume VII, annex 1 to the submission of the case, folio 2116); Resolution No. 086/2002 issued by the Second Trial Court of La Paz on November 18, 2002 (evidence file, volume VII, annex 24 to the submission of the case, folios 2191 and 2192), and Resolution No. 32/2004 issued by the Copacabana Trial Court on August 13, 2004 (evidence file, volume VII, annex 36 to the submission of the case, folios 2224 to 2230). 301 The State supported its position with the following probative elements: (i) Record of I.V.’s surgical procedure (supra para. 66); (ii) the statements provided by four members of the medical team, who were present during I.V.’s caesarean section and the tubal ligation, during the internal audits, the administrative proceeding and the domestic criminal proceedings, as well as the proceedings before this Court. These statements all indicated that I.V. gave her verbal consent to the tubal ligation in the operating theater after the caesarean section had been completed and due to the request and the clinical indication that her life would be at risk if she became pregnant again. Similarly, two audits, the report of the Ethics Tribunal of the Departmental College of Physicians, and the decision on the review of the administrative proceeding instituted concluded that, based on those statements, I.V. had expressed her verbal consent for the tubal ligation procedure to be performed (supra paras. 74, 76, 81 to 83 and 90). Cf. Statement made by Edgar Torrico Ameller on August 2, 2000, according to the medical record of the surgical procedure performed on I.V. issued by the Medical Audit Committee of the Women’s Hospital (evidence file, volume VII, annex 1 to the submission of the case, folio 2115); Statement made by Edgar Torrico Ameller on July 1, 2002, according to Final decision No. 020/2002 issued by the Legal Advisory Services Unit of the La Paz Departmental 302