14 contend that their right to appeal a judgment to a higher court or judge, a right recognized in Article 8(2)(h) of the American Convention, was violated by the fact that the Temuco Court of Appeals did only a partial review of the verdict, and dismissed the grounds upon which they based their motion to vacate; they also argued that the appeals court did not examine all the grounds invoked by the petitioners: “the superior court (…) stopped short of considering a number of our allegations, and did only a partial review of the judgment; the court’s contention was that in order to consider the other allegations it would have to explore questions of fact, for which the higher court does not have jurisdiction. In other words, the higher court did not do an authentic review of the conviction, thereby violating the right of appeal. Furthermore, the higher court failed to review the argument made in the complaint, thereby transforming 47 into an empty procedural measure.” 37. The petitioners are claiming that the appellate court did only a partial review of the lower court ruling because the appellate court addressed only two of the petitioners’ arguments in their motion to vacate the lower court ruling: the fact that the lower court had not considered all the evidence, and the fact that the crime charged was classified as a terrorist offense, a violation of Article 8(2)(f) of the Convention reflected in consideranda 5 and 20 of the appellate court ruling. In those paragraphs of its ruling, the appellate court “narrows its jurisdiction so that it abstains from ruling on any essential questions raised by our defense, specifically the failure to consider numerous pieces of exculpatory evidence and the question of whether or not the crime being prosecuted was a terrorist offense. We 48 were thus denied an authentic review of the guilty verdict.” 38. As for the appellate court’s failure to address some of the arguments presented in the motions filed to have their convictions vacated, the petitioners contend that in the appellate court proceedings the defense attorneys for Patricia Troncoso, José Benicio Huenchunao and Juan Ciriaco Millacheo had asserted a violation of the principle of equal protection as grounds for vacating the verdict, as an arbitrary distinction had been made in the application of the principle of immediacy when the lower court weighed the evidence and exculpatory evidence. However, the higher court failed to address this argument. The State 39. G. The State did not submit any substantive observations on this particular point. Other arguments of the petitioners 40. In the three cases under consideration, the petitioners have made a number of additional claims alleging violation of their guarantees under articles 8 and 9 of the Convention. These allegations allude to the following: (i) the aforementioned violation of the presumption of innocence, the admission and weighing of evidence of guilt and exculpatory evidence, and their application to criminal proceedings conducted against Mapuche indigenous persons; (ii) a failure to respect their rights to have the time and means to prepare their defense and question and summon witnesses, recognized in articles 8(2)(c) and 8(2)(f) of the American Convention, during the criminal trial and in the guilty verdict that the Angol Oral Criminal Trial Court delivered against Juan Patricio Marileo Saravia, Florencio Jaime Marileo Saravia, Patricia Roxana Troncoso Robles, José Benicio Huenchunao Mariñán and Juan Ciríaco Millacheo Licán, given that the testimony that the Public Prosecutor’s Office presented against them during the trial phase was not the same as the evidence presented in the investigative phase; the latter had been provided to their attorneys and was the basis upon which their defense was built; (iii) a failure to observe the principle of the non-retroactivity of criminal law, recognized in Article 9 of the Convention, to the detriment of petitioners Pascual Pichún and Aniceto Norín, by virtue of the fact that the anonymous witnesses used in the trial phase meant that a more restrictive criminal procedure law was being applied 47 Original petition that Juan Patricio Marileo Saravia, Florencio Jaime Marileo Saravia, Patricia Roxana Troncoso Robles, José Benicio Huenchunao Mariñán and Juan Ciríaco Millacheo Licán filed with the IACHR, April 13, 2005, p. 16. 48 Original petition that Juan Patricio Marileo Saravia, Florencio Jaime Marileo Saravia, Patricia Roxana Troncoso Robles, José Benicio Huenchunao Mariñán and Juan Ciríaco Millacheo Licán filed with the IACHR, April 13, 2005, p. 17.