respondent State, the Republic of Ecuador, ratified the American Convention on December 28, 1977. The Commission, therefore, has competence ratione personae to examine the petition. 23. As regards the Commission’s competence ratione loci, the Commission has such competence given that all the alleged violations were committed within the jurisdiction of the Republic of Ecuador. 24. With respect to the Commission’s competence ratione temporis, the Commission has such competence given that the alleged violations were committed after Ecuador’s ratification of the American Convention on December 28, 1977. 25. Finally, the Commission has competence ratione materiae because the petition alleges violations of human rights set forth in, and protected by, the American Convention. B. Other Requirements for Admissibility a. Exhaustion of Domestic Remedies 26. The exhaustion of domestic remedies is a requisite for the admissibility of any petition brought before the Inter-American Commission. This requisite, however, is subject to a number of denial of justice exceptions, set forth in Article 46(2) of the American Convention, which provide that domestic remedies need not be exhausted if the legislation of the State concerned fails to afford due process for the protection of the right allegedly violated; if the party alleging violation has been hindered in his or her access to domestic remedies; or if there has been unwarranted delay in the issuance of a final judgment. 27. The State correctly notes that the exception to the rule of exhaustion of domestic remedies must be raised in the first stages of the proceedings before the Commission. The State raised the issue in its first response to the petitioner’s complaint. The State has argued, however, that domestic remedies were not exhausted in this case because the petitioners failed to denounce the events to the authorities and consequently the State had no information about which it could have conducted an investigation and no information that such events had taken place. The State notes that it has no information that the petitioners attempted to exhaust their domestic remedies before the Ecuadorian authorities, or that they even attempted to initiate any such remedy by filing a criminal accusation against any of the individuals whom they considered responsible for the events. 28. The petitioners responded to the State’s reply by pointing out that the individual, under Ecuadorian law, is not required to initiate criminal proceedings by filing an accusation against the persons putatively responsible for the crime. When a crime is committed, the State authorities are, by law, obliged to try the persons responsible and to punish them, whether there is an accusation against any particular individual or not. This is particularly true in cases involving violence in which the National Police and the Transit Commission of Guayas (special police) were reportedly involved. The State cannot claim ignorance of the facts when they were widely disseminated in the Ecuadorian press. 29. Furthermore, the petitioners point out that they filed a claim before the Ecuadorian Courts: the proceedings were given the number 91-97 and were initiated before the 13th Criminal Court in Guayas. The petitioners presented a timely accusation against the persons they considered responsible for the assassinations, as part of the above-cited proceedings. Mery Chancay Quimís, Walter Huacón’s widow, filed a criminal accusation against José Carbo. In the same proceedings, the 5