24. The State argued that – owing to their character as victims in the Suits for Damages against Luis García Meza Tejada and his collaborators, as well as in the ordinary criminal procedure of the "Public Prosecutor v/ Franz Pizarro Solano et al.," the relatives of Juan Carlos Flores Bedregal had the domestic legal mechanisms of reparation at their disposal, which, for the first process, took into account the abrogated Code of Criminal Procedure of 1972; and for the second process, Law No. 1970 of March, 25, 1999. It alleged that those remedies were not exhausted in a timely manner. 25. The Commission noted that the State invoked this objection for the first time in the brief filed on January 19, 2011, almost a year and a half after adopting Admissibility Report No. 65/09 of August 4, 2009. Therefore, it argued that this preliminary objection was not filed by the State at the appropriate procedural time. It further stated that the Convention does not require the exhaustion of additional remedies for reparation when remedies linked to the determination of predicate violations have already been exhausted, as this would impose a disproportionate burden on victims seeking international protection. 26. The representatives argued – as the Commission pointed out in its Admissibility Report – that the fact that decades have elapsed without determining the whereabouts of the alleged victim or clarifying what happened is sufficient to conclude that there was an unjustified delay that exempts the petitioner party from exhausting domestic remedies. It added that the preliminary objection formulated by the State does not meet the material or formal requirements demanded by the Court's case law in demonstrating that the remedies pending exhaustion were appropriate, suitable, or effective in relation to the victims' claim in this case. It also noted that this argument on admissibility was not presented at the appropriate procedural time. B.2. Considerations of the Court 27. The American Convention establishes that the Court may only exercise its contentious jurisdiction in cases in which it has previously complied with the procedures provided for in Articles 44 to 50 of the Treaty that refer to the study of individual petitions by the Commission. The State questions the exercise of the Court's contentious jurisdiction in this case based on the alleged failure to comply with the rules governing the admissibility of individual petitions, specifically, those relating to the prior filing and exhaustion of domestic remedies. 28. However, Article 46 of the American Convention states that examining the exhaustion of domestic remedies as a requirement for the admissibility of petitions is subject to generally recognized principles of international law. The principles governing international contentious proceedings and the precedents established by the Court in its case law and by the Commission in its reports indicate that objections as to whether or not domestic remedies have been exhausted as a prerequisite for access to international protection are only enforceable on States at the appropriate procedural time, in this case, during the admissibility procedure before the Commission. 13 29. As understood from the proceedings of this case, Petition No. 616/06 on the alleged violations of the American Convention perpetrated against Juan Carlos Flores Bedregal and his family was declared admissible by Admissibility Report No. 65/09 of August 4, 2009, communicated to the State on August 14, 2009. However, the State only alleged the failure to exhaust domestic remedies in relation to material reparations, through the brief of Cfr. Case of Velásquez-Rodríguez v. Honduras. Preliminary Objections. Judgment of June 26, 1987. Series C No. 1, para. 85, and Case of Sales Pimenta v. Brasil. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations, and Costs. Judgment of June 30, 2022. Series C No. 454, paras. 26 and 27. 13 9