Upon learning her true identity, Claudia Poblete renounced her adoptive family and decided to live with her maternal grandmother.
But the police officers' prosecution was barred by the amnesty laws. In 2001, federal Judge Gabriel Cavallo reopened the case, saying the amnesty laws were unconstitutional and violated Argentina's obligations under international human rights treaties. Cavallo's finding was upheld by Tuesday's decision.
The Supreme Court's ruling will serve as precedent in other cases involving atrocities during the dirty war.
"Before this ruling, it was possible in Argentina to be prosecuted for any crime -- except for the very worst ones," said Horacio Verbitsky of the Center for Legal and Social Studies. "This brings an end to the era of political manipulation of the justice system."
According to Verbitsky's group, which brought the suit on behalf of Claudia Poblete, about 30 cases involving 150 defendants will be immediately reopened.
Argentina's military junta operated dozens of concentration camps and torture centers. Some included maternity facilities where the babies of pregnant detainees were delivered and given to military officials in secret adoptions.
Thousands of people were executed in secret, without trial, including drugged prisoners who were tossed from airplanes into the nearby Rio de la Plata and the Atlantic Ocean.
The 1983-89 government of President Raul Alfonsin prosecuted a handful of top generals and admirals for human rights violations in the months immediately after democracy was restored in 1983, including Videla and Massera. But the movement to bring to justice those responsible for the crimes of the dictatorship soon ran into obstacles, including violent resistance from some military officers.
Argentina's Congress approved what amounted to an amnesty for the military when it passed the two laws. The 1986 Final Point law established a 60-day deadline for new human rights prosecutions. The 1987 Law of Due Obedience exempted all but the highest military officials from prosecution.
Since then, most of the prosecutions against army, navy and air force officers accused of running the dirty war have taken place in European courtrooms, where judges have sought the extradition of the men charged in the deaths of European nationals. But the military's influence here has diminished dramatically in recent years.
Shortly after taking office in 2003, Kirchner conducted a purge of top military officials. He later had the portraits of Videla and other officials from the dictatorship removed from Argentina's leading military college.
In March 2004, Kirchner's government took over the campus of the Navy Mechanics School, which had served as the dictatorship's most notorious concentration camp. Kirchner announced that it would be transformed into a museum honoring the dead and missing.
"I come to ask forgiveness, in the name of the state, for the shame of having kept silent during 20 years of democracy about so many atrocities," Kirchner told a crowd of thousands that rallied outside the facility.
Under Kirchner's administration, four Supreme Court justices have been impeached or forced to resign under threat of impeachment. All four of Kirchner's appointees voted to overturn the amnesty Tuesday.
