an individual according to which Mr. Brewer was the author of the “Carmona Decree.” Accordingly, in this brief, the representatives of Mr. Brewer Carías considered that “the investigation of this case has been conducted by an entity, headed by a person who is totally biased” and that, consequently, “the right of defense, to the presumption of innocence and […] to due process, all of a constitutional rank, [had been violated], which resulted in the nullity of all the actions taken by the Public Prosecution Service,” and asked the judge “to exercise real control over the proceedings,” because “the violations in which the Public Prosecution Service has incurred lead to the absolute nullity of all the proceedings because they entail violations of the constitutional rights and guarantees of the person we represent, as established in article 191 del OCCP.” 1.3 Position of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 22. For its part, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter “the Commission” or “the Inter-American Commission”) accorded “special relevance in its analysis to the problem of the provisional status of the judges and prosecutors, as well as to the risk that this problem signified to ensuring the guarantees of independence and impartiality to which the accused are entitled and which, evidently, constitute the institutional presumption ensuring that the individual has appropriate and effective remedies that they must exhaust.” It added that the problem posed in this case is of a structural nature and responds to a de facto situation of the judiciary that goes far beyond the abstract regulation of the criminal proceedings. 23. In this regard, the Commission emphasized that “during the admissibility stage […] the State failed to provide a satisfactory explanation of the reasons under domestic law that prevented the judicial authorities from ruling on the arguments that supported the appeal for a declaration of nullity owing to the absence of Mr. Brewer Carías.” 24. The Commission also indicated that the failure to decide the appeal for a declaration of nullity was evidence of a delay that can be attributed to the State as regards deciding the claims relating to the due process that were filed during the proceedings, and that the claims filed in the domestic jurisdiction with the request for annulment must be analyzed in the context of this and under Article 46(2)(c), because there had been a delay in the respective decision, and that the lapse of more than three years in deciding the remedy was a factor that met the requirements of the exception established owing to an unwarranted delay. 5 Thus, the Commission considered that, “pursuant to Venezuela’s domestic law, it was not obligatory to await the preliminary hearing in order to decide the request for annulment.” 1.4 Majority opinion with regard to the preliminary objection of exhaustion of domestic remedies 25. In view of the disagreement described above, in the Judgment it was considered that, in this case, in which the preliminary hearing and a decision, at least, of first instance are still pending, it was not possible to rule on the presumed violation of judicial guarantees, because there was no certainty yet about how the proceedings would proceed and whether many of the allegations presented could be resolved at the domestic level. 6 5 Admissibility Report No. 97/09, Petition 84-07, Allan R. Brewer Carías, Venezuela, September 8, 2009, para. 89 (file of annexes to the report, appendix, tome IV, folio 3629). 6 Cf. para. 89 of the Judgment. 5