and which would be made during the oral proceeding.3 The public hearing took place on March 18, 2013, during the forty-seventh special session of the Court, held in Medellín, Republic of Colombia.4 During the hearing, the Court required the parties to present certain helpful information and documentation. In addition, on March 13, 2013, the State and the representatives of the presumed victims submitted the affidavits, which were forwarded to the other parties for observations. 8. Final written arguments and observations. On April 19, 2013, the representatives of the presumed victims and the State forwarded their final written arguments and the Commission presented its final written observations. The parties and the Commission had the opportunity to present observations on the response presented in the final written arguments to the Court’s questions, and on the requested information. 9. Observations of the representatives, and the State. On June 21, 2013, the Secretariat of the Court, on the instructions of the President, requested various elements of helpful evidence, which was presented by the State and the representatives on June 27 and 28, 2013, respectively. The parties had the opportunity to present observations on this information. III COMPETENCE 10. The Court is competent to hear this case in the terms of Article 62(3) of the American Convention, because Ecuador has been a State Party to the Convention since December 28, 1977, and accepted the contentious jurisdiction of the Court on July 24, 1984. IV PARTIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF RESPONSIBILITY BY THE STATE A. Partial acknowledgement of responsibility by the State and observations of the Commission and the representatives 11. In this case, the State acquiesced to various facts and acknowledged its responsibility for some of the violations alleged by the Commission and the parties. The Court will now describe the terms and scope of the State’s acknowledgement and, to this end, deems it pertinent to recall that this case relates to both the termination of the members of the Constitutional Tribunal for reasons presumably associated with their appointment, and also to two impeachment proceedings held in relation to two decisions adopted by the Tribunal (infra paras. 55 to 66 and 67 to 98). 12. The State presented “a partial acquiescence, solely and exclusively in relation to the procedure of the termination of the former members of the former Constitutional Tribunal,” since this termination was based on “various inconsistencies in the Constitution that was repealed.” It explained that the acquiescence was made because: 3 Cf. Case of Camba Campos et al. v. Ecuador. Order of the President of the Inter-American Court of February 15, 2013. Available at: http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/asuntos/camba_15_02_13.pdf. 4 At this hearing, there appeared: (a) for the Inter-American Commission: Silvia Serrano Guzmán and Erick Acuña; (b) for the representatives of the presumed victims: David Cordero Heredia and Ramiro Ávila Santamaría, and (c) for Ecuador: Alonso Fonseca and Carlos Espín. 6