29 of such States to guarantee the free and full exercise of the rights recognized by the Convention to 155 all persons subject to their jurisdiction (Art. 1.1). 141. The Commission notes that although the obligation of conducting an investigation is an obligation of means and not of results, that obligation […] must be assumed by the State as its own juridical duty and not as a simple formality condemned beforehand to be fruitless, or as a simple action of individual interests, which depends on the procedural initiative of the victims or their next of kin or of the private contribution of 156 evidentiary elements. 142. In the case at hand, the petitioners claim that the State violated the rights enshrined in Articles 8 and 25 of the Convention through its unwillingness to investigate and punish the alleged facts, in that 14 years went by from the start of the criminal proceedings before the regular courts to the finalization of the conviction on July 23, 2008, during which time the case was archived for eight years (from 1995 to 2003) in application of Amnesty Law No. 26492. Regarding the alleged violation of Article 8.1 of the Convention, the petitioners claim that the process was brought before a venue – the military courts – that was not competent to hear the case because it involved a common crime and not a servicerelated or military offense. They note that it was the military courts that applied the Amnesty Law and that the regular courts upheld that decision, prior to the resolution of the conflict of jurisdiction brought up by the military justice system to resolve which jurisdiction had competence over the proceedings – a conflict that was finally settled on behalf of the regular courts when the proceedings had already been sent to the archive. 143. The State, in turn, initially claimed that the facts of the case occurred during a countersubversive operation, for which reason the command of the First Special Forces Division filed a complaint with the Permanent Court-Martial of the Second Army Judicial District against Sergeant Second-Class Antonio Evangelista Pinedo for the crime of negligent homicide; later, on July 20, 1995, the accused benefited from the Amnesty Law pursuant to the Constitution and special provisions. The State indicated that following the Inter-American Court’s adoption of its interpretation judgment in the Barrios Altos Case on September 3, 2001, the case was reopened on January 21, 2003. The State claimed that it worked for the Public Prosecution Service’s investigation of the matter in order to punish the guilty, and that for that purpose it has an institutional and regulatory framework that allows suspects to be investigated and prosecuted. The State reminds the Commission that its function is not to serve as a “virtual fourth instance” but that its oversight is instead of a “subsidiary, reinforcing, and complementary” nature. 144. Regarding the ability of the system’s agencies to analyze domestic proceedings, the Commission notes that according to precedent established by the Inter-American Court: In order to clarify whether the State has violated its international obligations owing to the acts of its judicial organs, [the Commission and the Court] may have to examine the respective domestic proceedings. In light of the above, the domestic proceedings must be considered as a whole and the role of the international court is to establish whether the proceedings as a whole were in 157 accordance with international provisions. 155 I/A Court H. R., Case of the Ituango Massacres v. Colombia, Judgment of July 1, 2006, Series C No. 148, para. 287. 156 I/A Court H. R., Case of the Miguel Castro Castro Prison v. Peru, Merits, Reparations, and Costs, Judgment of November 25, 2006, Series C No. 160, para. 255; I/A Court H. R., Case of Vargas Areco v. Paraguay, Merits, Reparations, and Costs, Judgment of September 26, 2006, Series C No. 155, para. 75; I/A Court H. R., Case of the Ituango Massacres v. Colombia, Preliminary Objection, Merits, Reparations, and Costs, Judgment of July 1, 2006, Series C No. 148, para. 131; and Case of the Massacre of Pueblo Bello, para. 120. 157 I/A Court H. R., Case of Zambrano Vélez et al. v. Ecuador, Merits, Reparations, and Costs, Judgment of July 4, 2007, Series C No. 166, para. 142; I/A Court H. R., Case of Lori Berenson Mejía v. Peru, Merits, Reparations, and Costs, Judgment of November 25, 2004, Series C No. 119, para. 133; I/A Court H. R., Case of Myrna Mack Chang v. Guatemala, Merits, Reparations, and Costs, Judgment of November 25, 2003, Series C No. 101, para. 200; and I/A Court H. R., Case of Juan Humberto Sánchez v. Honduras, Preliminary Objection, Merits, Reparations, and Costs, Judgment of June 7, 2003, Series C No. 99, para. 120.