8 41. The Secretariat also asked the Commission “to indicate whether any other law was cited in the case.” Those requests were repeated on September 30, 1998, at which time the Commission and the State were given until October 30, 1998 to comply with the Court’s request. On October 5, 1998, the State sent two volumes containing “certified copies of the proceedings conducted against Jaime Castillo Petruzzi et al. [...] before the Military Courts of Peru, for the crime of treason.” For its part, on October 26, 1998, the Commission indicated that “the State would be the one to know which laws were applied in these cases.” Accordingly, it again petitioned the Court to ask the State for the laws and provisions used in the domestic proceedings and for the records from the military courts. The following day, the Secretariat informed the Commission that the court records had been sent to it that day, by special mail, and that the Commission’s request would be brought to the President’s attention. 42. On July 14, 1998, the Secretariat, on instructions from the Court, which for its part was acting at the State’s behest, requested that the Commission remit the minutes of the meeting where the decision to submit the instant case to the Court was made, and any other document showing that the alleged victims were aware of the steps being taken on their behalf with the Commission, regardless of whether the claimants had powers of attorney from the alleged victims’ next of kin. On July 29, 1998, the Commission supplied the requested documents, which were forwarded to the State that same day. 43. On August 24, 1998, the State objected to the minutes of the Commission’s proceedings on the grounds that they were in English and asked that it be furnished with a Spanish translation. The next day, the Secretariat sent the State a translation of the minutes so that it might understand the contents. No reply was received at the Secretariat by the August 28, 1998 deadline that the State was given to present its comments on the minutes. On September 11 of that year, the State asserted that the minutes of the Commission meeting where the decision to submit the case to the Court was taken, revealed that it was “a premature decision on a matter not yet settled; the matter was, in fact, pending because a previously requested extension had been granted.” Acting on instructions from the President, on September 29, 1998 the Secretariat informed the State that its observations should have been presented by August 28 of that year at the latest. As a consequence, the submission it filed on September 11 was extemporaneous and, moreover, moot since the Court had already delivered its judgment on the preliminary objections. 44. In its judgment of September 4, 1998, the Court concurred with the third preliminary objection, which concerned consular visits, but dismissed all the other preliminary objections filed by the State. The Court therefore decided to continue its consideration of the case.2 45. By order of September 8, 1998, the President convened the Inter-American Commission and the State to a public hearing at the seat of the Court, starting on November 25, for the purpose of hearing the testimony of the witnesses offered by the Commission. The President also instructed the Secretariat to advise the parties treason), promulgated on November 25, 1993; Supreme Decree No. 015-96-JUS (approving the Ley de Arrepentimiento [Repentance Act]), promulgated on May 7, 1993; and Decree-Law No. 25,499, Regulation Governing the Repentance Act, published May 8, 1993. 2. Castillo Petruzzi et al. Case, Preliminary Objections, Judgment of September 4, 1998. Series C No. 41.

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