A/HRC/45/13/Add.3 amnesties for serious human rights violations as a means to solidify a fair and transparent transitional justice process and in order to guarantee the centrality of victims within this process.218 96. In Tunisia, the Working Group regretted the proposal to dismantle the Specialized Criminal Chambers and to replace them with two new institutions that would be empowered to examine cases of gross human rights violations committed between 1955 and 2013 and to grant amnesties to the alleged perpetrators of these violations. The Working Group held that the proposal leads to impunity.219 97. In Spain, the current legal provisions related to the obligations to conduct investigations to clarify the fate of the missing person is applicable only and exclusively to enforced disappearances that are subsequent to 23 December 2010. The application of the Amnesty Law 46/1977 prevents the thorough and impartial investigation of thousands of complaints of enforced disappearances and the prosecution and punishment of those responsible.220 Moreover, on 27 February 2012, the Supreme Court issued judgment No. 101/2012, which prevents Spanish judges from investigating crimes of the Civil War. This contravenes the States’ obligations to ensure that perpetrators of enforced disappearances, including those who order, solicit, or induce the commission of, attempt to commit, are accomplices to, or participate in an enforced disappearance are prosecuted and sanctioned. Obstacles to investigative processes also imply restrictive or impossible access to archives, particularly military archives, that contain information on the fate of those disappeared, and the reluctant engagement of governmental authorities in processes of search, exhumation and identification of disappeared persons.221 98. The parliament of North Macedonia decided to subject all cases returned from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for prosecution at the domestic level to the 2002 Amnesty Law as a major legal impediment to investigations.222 In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Law on Amendments to the Criminal Code of 2015 introduced enforced disappearances as a separate offense, but it cannot be implemented retroactively.223 II. Jurisprudence related to policy measures outlined in Section III of the Thematic Report A. Obligation to criminalize enforced disappearance autonomously 99. Article 4 of the Declaration establishes the obligation of the State to qualify enforced disappearance as an independent crime, which is understood as a critical requirement for an effective investigation.224 Many countries lack specific legal provisions dedicated to protecting persons against enforced disappearances. 100. In France, enforced disappearances is codified as an autonomous offense via article 221-12 of the Penal Code introduced by Law No. 2013-711 as a result of the broader adjustment of French legislation to the Law of the European Union.225 101. In Thailand, a draft Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Act establishes both torture and enforced disappearances as distinct crimes. However, in February 2017, Thailand’s National Legislative Assembly decided to return 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 38 Available at https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx? NewsID=25855&LangID=E. AL TUN 3/2019. Spain, Amnesty Law 46/1977 of 15 October 1977; A/HRC/27/49/Add.1, paras. 39–41. A/HRC/27/49/Add.1, para. 29. Council of Europe, “Missing persons and victims of enforced disappearance in Europe,” Issue Paper, (Brussels 2016), 47. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Law on Amendments to the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina of 19 May 2015, Official Gazette of BiH”, No. 40/15. See Section III, A. of the Thematic Report. France, Penal Code of 1 March 1994, article 221-12.