as part of the preliminary hearing or independently of this; whether this request should be decided within the three-day time frame or, to the contrary, during the preliminary hearing, and whether the State’s failure to rule on the request constitutes an unwarranted delay in the criminal proceedings, are directly related to the merits of the case, because both parties have submitted arguments on reasonable time, judicial guarantees, and judicial protection that are closely related to this determination. Consequently, only by examining the merits would it have been possible to determine whether the said unwarranted delay really existed, and whether the rights under the American Convention were violated 2.2.c.a) The time frame and the procedural stage established by domestic law for deciding the requests for annulment 94. The Judgment noted that there are “two interpretations of the procedural stage at which the requests for annulment that were filed should be decided.” 93 Nevertheless, despite the complexity of the arguments of both parties about the procedural stage at which the decision should be taken, the Judgment subsequently decides a polemic aspect, among other arguments, by indicating that a 523-page request could not be decided in three days, as if the length of the request determines the procedural stage at which it must be decided. 95. In its analysis of this point, the majority opinion completely disregarded the first request for annulment of October 4, 2005, filed during the preliminary investigation stage, a request that was not even processed. Furthermore, it did not consider that the second request for annulment of November 8, 2005, was clearly divided into matters related, on the one hand, to the absolute nullity of the measures taken in the investigation conducted by the Public Prosecution Service and, on the other, the nullity of the decision concluding the indictment stage against Allan R. Brewer Carías. 96. Indeed, as the case file indicates, 94 the November 8, 2005, request for a declaration of nullity clearly includes the heading “II. REQUEST FOR ANNULMENT OF ALL THE PROCEEDINGS OWING TO THE SYSTEMATIC AND MASSIVE VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL GUARANTEES OF ALLAN R. BREWER CARÍAS,” and this, in turn, is divided into six parts: (1) nullity owing to the refusal of defense measures: (a) refusal of testimony, and (b) denial of access to videos, and to their transcription; (2) nullity owing to the violation of the right to defense and the principle of the presumption of innocence by inverting the burden of proof and using hearsay testimony; (3) nullity owing to the violation of the right of defense and the adversarial principle related to mediatized practice of investigation procedures; (4) nullity owing to absence of a prompt decision (relating to the first request for annulment of October 4, 2005); (5) nullity based on the violation of the guarantee of an ordinary judge, and (6) observations and arguments common to the preceding requests for annulment. 97. In this regard, we consider that the distinction made in the second request for annulment of November 8, 2005, between the nullity of proceedings in the investigation stage and the nullity of the decision concluding the stage of the indictment of Allan R. Brewer Carías is clear. Indeed, on the one hand, the nullity of all the measures taken owing to violations of fundamental rights during the investigation could be decided before the preliminary hearing (some of the arguments even refer to the failure to process the first request for annulment of October 4, which should have been decided during the preliminary investigation stage); to the contrary, the nullity of the indictment could be decided at any 93 Para. 130 of the Judgment. 94 Folios 14696 to 14787 of the file of annexes to the answering brief, which correspond to pages 21 to 111 of the brief requesting annulment of November 8, 2005. 24