arbitrary detention, torture and death, to consider the objections to the Amnesty Law as the central element of the petition, and therefore asked the Court to conduct a control of the legality of the Commission’s action. 56. Second, the State argued that it was not valid to calculate the reasonable time from the date on which the Amnesty Law was promulgated because this would entail the Court exercising its contentious jurisdiction in the abstract. It added that, even if that date was taken into consideration, 30 years had passed between the promulgation of the Law and the lodging of the petition before the Commission. Third, it argued that it was not appropriate to consider the attempts to open an investigation and the procedures to obtain measures of reparation as a temporal framework to calculate the reasonable time. Fourth, it added that the alleged continuing nature of the impunity of the facts did not allow a time frame to be established, and this prevented any analysis of the reasonable time. It also indicated that, since August 28, 1979, there had been no domestic remedy to investigate the violations suffered by Vladimir Herzog, and that these had been instantaneous rather than continuing. 57. It also argued that Brazil had ratified the American Convention in 1992 and, as of that time, the petitioners were able to lodge their case before the Commission. The State indicated that, in the absence of domestic remedies, the six-month rule established in Article 46 of the Convention was not applicable, but the obligation to lodge the petition within a reasonable time did apply. 58. Brazil considered that the criteria used by the Commission to consider a reasonable time were “extremely” flexible and varied based on casuistic considerations. It emphasized that, in the case sub judice, the violations had been of an instantaneous nature and that 30 years had passed between the time the facts occurred and the lodging of the petition. In the State’s opinion, this did not constitute a reasonable time. 59. Lastly, the State considered it inappropriate that the last attempt to re-open the investigation in this specific case should be used as a date for calculating the reasonable time. It indicated that the purpose of the claim filed before the Public Prosecution Service in 2007 was the failure of the Union to present actions for reimbursement (to collect compensation) against the perpetrators of the damage under Law No. 9140 of 1995. That claim was not limited to the case of Vladimir Herzog and did not seek to incriminate anyone; to the contrary, according to the State, it recognized that the criminal actions had extinguished due to the application of statutory limitations. Therefore, the State’s representatives argued that, what happened in 2008, had not been a closing of the investigation and, consequently, the reasonable time should not be calculated from that last date. Finally, it indicated that, in the Merits Report, the Commission had failed to identify clearly the criteria used to assess the reasonable time and that it was obliged to identify the date from which this was calculated. 60. The Commission noted, first, that the State had asked the Court to conduct a control of the legality of the analysis of the six-month period. It indicated that it had full autonomy in the exercise of its powers under the Convention, and a review of matters relating to admissibility should only be conducted in exceptional circumstances when the following elements are present: (i) a procedural error; (ii) that is considered very serious; (iii) that affects the right of defense of the party citing it, and (iv) that specific prejudice has been proved. The Commission considered that none of these elements were present in this case. 61. Second, the Commission considered that the exception to the requirement of exhaustion of domestic remedies established in Article 46(2)(a) of the Convention was applicable, because the six-month period was inapplicable. The Commission reiterated its considerations in the Admissibility Report, in which it had argued that, in cases that 14