it until July 31, 2019, to present any observations it deemed pertinent. The State did not present any observations. 12. Deliberation of the case. The Court began to deliberate this judgment on November 19, 2019. III. JURISDICTION 13. Venezuela was a State Party to the American Convention as of August 9, 1977, and accepted the contentious jurisdiction of the Court on June 24, 1981. Subsequently, on September 10, 2012, the State denounced the American Convention. This denunciation came into effect on September 10, 2013, According to Article 78(2) of the Convention,7 the Court has jurisdiction to hear this case because the facts examined occurred prior to the moment at which the denunciation of the Convention could produce effects. IV. PRELIMINARY OBJECTIONS A. Arguments of the State and observations of the Commission 14. The State filed an objection of failure to exhaust domestic remedies and indicated that “the analysis of compliance with the requirement of prior exhaustion of domestic remedies should be made based on the moment at which the petition is lodged before the Commission and not on the moment at which the Commission adopts its Admissibility Report.” The State also underlined that the petition had been submitted when the criminal proceedings were still being processed and that the Commission had argued a supposed unjustified delay – which had not been invoked by the alleged victims – that had violated its right of defense and due process. In addition, it argued that the Commission and the representatives were seeking to convert the Court into a fourth instance to examine and rule on an incident that had already been the subject of two criminal proceedings under domestic law that had both concluded with acquittal of the police officers based on an assessment of the available evidence, in keeping with the rules of the accusatory system. It added that they were even attempting to get the Court to assess the evidence gathered in the criminal proceedings because they disagreed with the decisions taken by the judges of the domestic jurisdiction. 15. The Commission recalled that analysis of the exhaustion of domestic remedies was made in relation to the situation that prevailed when it ruled on the admissibility of a petition and in light of the information provided by the parties at that stage. It also reiterated that the State had incurred in an unjustified delay and that, to reach this conclusions, it had considered the time that had elapsed since the deaths, and the absence of sufficient arguments to justify the delay, taking into account the periods of inactivity that had been recorded, as well as the failure to comply with the time limits established in domestic law which were long expired. Lastly, it indicated that the petitioners had requested the application of Article 46(2)(c) and that, in any case, it was not necessary to expressly argue an exception to the exhaustion of domestic remedies at the admissibility stage, because this was analyzed, ex officio, even if the State did not invoke a cause of inadmissibility or the petitioner a specific exception. Regarding the fourth instance argument, it referred to the decision taken by the Court in the case of Cabrera García and Montiel Flores v. Mexico and recalled that the Court had clarified the situation in which that objection was admissible and, also, that “if it is claimed that a Article 78(2) of the Convention establishes that: ”[s]uch a denunciation shall not have the effect of releasing the State Party concerned from the obligations contained in this Convention with respect to any act that may constitute a violation of those obligations and that has been taken by that State prior to the effective date of denunciation.” 7 -6-