25. Ecuador specified that on October 7 Emilio Palacio “filed a petition for review of a denied appeal challenging the order whereby the court declined to entertain his petition for cassation […]. This petition for review of a denied appeal was based on Article 327 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which establishes that ‘when an appeal is filed by one defendant in a case with various codefendants, it will benefit all of them.’” It explained that the Second Criminal Division of Guayas granted the petition for review of a denied appeal and ordered the suspension of the judgment against defendant Emilio Palacio until the adjudication of the petition for cassation filed by the rest of the defendants. Thus, in the opinion of the State “the only person who had concluded his local proceedings when the petition was filed [before the IACHR] should have waited for the outcome of his codefendants’ petition for cassation since, as the judge stated, the result of the others’ appeal could have changed Mr. Palacio’s legal situation.” 26. Later, the State explained that the Criminal Division of the National Court of Justice announced its decision to deny the petition for cassation during a hearing on February 16, 2012. It further reported that, “In a pleading dated February 27, 2012, the complainant in the case alleging criminal defamation [injurias calumniosas], economist Rafael Correa Delgado, filed a pardon with the National Court of Justice on behalf of Messrs. Emilio Palacio Urrutia, Carlos Eduardo Pérez Lapentti, Carlos Eduardo Pérez Barriga, and César Enrique Pérez Barriga, as well as a reprieve or remission of the obligation to pay damages. He further specified that his defense attorneys waived their right to request the payment of the attorney fees ordered as part of the court costs. In the same pleading, he requested that that case be shelved, stating for the record that the judgment must have no effects whatsoever, as such effects were terminated by the complainant’s pardon.” The State added that in an order dated February 28, 2012, the National Court of Justice accepted the request for the commutation of the sentence and the remission of the payment of damages and court costs, and ordered that the case be shelved. 27. With respect to meeting the admissibility requirements, the State indicated that “the domestic remedies were not exhausted, and the facts alleged to not constitute the violation of any right enshrined in the American Convention; therefore, this petition cannot be admitted.” The State asserted that in this case “only the petitioner’s dissatisfaction with the court decisions handed down in Ecuador can be inferred.” In view of that situation, the State asserted that the Inter-American Commission “is prevented from acting as a fourth instance to review the merits of local proceedings.” 28. With regard to the exhaustion of domestic remedies, the State asserted that if the petitioners “are of the opinion that the case for criminal defamation of an authority is a violation of the right to freedom of expression, and that this case is tacitly voided by virtue of the repeal provision of the Ecuadorian Constitution of 2008, Ecuadorian law provides an action of unconstitutionality, which could have been filed at the national level, allowing Ecuador to adjudicate the allegedly harmful act, [and] issue the appropriate decision.” The State explained that the petitioners “had and still have the opportunity to file an action of unconstitutionality.” 29. The State additionally maintained that if alleged victim Emilio Palacio “sought to vacate a judgment issued against him, both the extraordinary action to enforce constitutional rights and the petition for cassation were the local remedies that the alleged victims should have exhausted prior to availing themselves of Inter-American System.” It added that, “since a party to legal proceedings cannot benefit from his own negligence, the State regrets that the outcome of the petition for cassation was adverse to the petitioner’s aims, but it recalls that the obligation of the State is limited to offering the remedy rather than guaranteeing its results; in this case, the inaction of the litigant’s legal representative has allowed the statute of limitations to expire on the extraordinary action to enforce constitutional rights, the effectiveness of which has been repeatedly demonstrated in Ecuador.” 30. Although the State acknowledged the extraordinary nature of the aforementioned remedies (petition for cassation, action of unconstitutionality, and action to enforce constitutional rights), it underscored that, according to the inter-American case law and doctrine the remedies that must be exhausted “must be 6