A/HRC/13/31 these planes to land on its territories without adopting any measure to prevent their use for secret detention and rendition. Replies from the Government 486. The Government replied to the first allegation on 26 February 2009, rejecting the substance of the allegations made and underlining the manifest lack of exactness and precision of the information on which they are based. Regarding the allegation that there have been no investigations into disappearances that took place during the Spanish civil war and General Franco’s regime, the Government quoted a number of measures that have been taken since 2004, including the creation of the Historical Memory Documentation Centre, and the passing of a law in 2007, which recognizes and expands rights and establishes measures for persons who suffered persecution or violence during the civil war and dictatorship. The Government further indicated that an order handed down by a judge and a communication of the Directorate-General of Registers and Notaries state the obligation for all those in charge of municipal and consular civil registries and the Central Civil Registry to “allow access to the main and subsidiary Civil Registry of the judicial police designated by the aforementioned Central Investigating Court, for the purpose of identifying possible victims who disappeared after 17 July 1936”. The General Commissariat of Judicial Police was created within the Directorate-General of the Police and Civil Guard as the competent body to ascertain whether any cases of criminal liability arose during the civil war and the period of General Franco’s dictatorship. 487. Regarding the allegation about the Amnesty Law, the Government replied that while it is provided in certain cases as a form of extinction of criminal liability, there is a need to differentiate between amnesty and pardon, the latter being release from punishment for a previously sanctioned offence, which has first been subject to the process of being brought to trial and criminal proceedings instituted. A distinction should also be made between amnesty and the application of statutory limitations. The latter is based on the premise in law that penalization is deemed inappropriate after a certain amount of time has elapsed if the principle of legal certainty and immediacy is applied rationally in the prosecution and penalization of offences. The application of statutory limitations is not a pardon but a decision not to punish an offence for practical reasons, due to the acceptance by the public authorities of the ineffectiveness of criminal proceedings after a certain lapse of time. 488. The Amnesty Law cannot, and must not, be confused with the so-called “Clean Slate Acts”. Moreover, and in conformity with article 9 of the Amnesty Law, its implementation will, in all cases, fall exclusively to the relevant judges, courts and judicial authorities, who will make final decisions on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the procedural laws in force. Investigations into enforced disappearances have been carried out in all cases where a request has been made by an interested party and no decision has ever been handed down based on the Amnesty Law. 489. Regarding the allegation that the Historical Memory Law fails to address the crime of enforced disappearance, the Government replied that its purpose is not to criminalize and penalize the crime of enforced disappearance but to promote measures that might contribute to us learning more about our history and fostering the democratic memory, all in the framework of the spirit of reconciliation. 490. Furthermore, the Historical Memory Law does not specifically focus on the crime of enforced disappearances, since there are already more than 80 existing legislative and regulatory measures to cover this kind of offence and offer forms of moral reparation and compensation (a list of current measures adopted is attached). 491. Regarding the allegation that thousands of children were allegedly placed in orphanages and given up for adoption, and in many cases had their names changed in the GE.09-17704 103