b) Did not indicate that the State’s argument was time-barred or lacked the required specificity
as regards indicating the existing remedies, but rather analyzed the arguments on which it was
founded.
c) Regarding the exhaustion of domestic remedies, it understood that they had been duly
exhausted on May 11, 2007, when the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice
confirmed the inadmissibility of the application for constitutional amparo filed on August 14, 2006,
against the rejection of the appeal for review of the measure of detention filed on March 24, 2006
(supra paras. 82 to 85).
d) Regarding the time frame, concluded that, since “the application for amparo that exhausted
the domestic remedies [had been] declared inadmissible in second instance on May 11, 2007,” the
petition [had been] submitted opportunely on October 12, 2005.
e) Consequently, the Commission considered that the requirements of Article 46(1)(a) of the
American Convention had been met in relation to the arguments concerning the preventive
detention and the detention conditions, in relation to the presumed violation of Articles 5, 7, 8 and
25 of the Convention
f) To the contrary, regarding the presumed irregularities of the criminal proceedings, based on
the waiver of the right to appeal the adverse judgment (supra para. 88) the Commission found
that, for these facts, the domestic remedies had not been exhausted and that, given the failure to
comply with this requirement, the exceptions established in Article 46(2) of the American
Convention had not been met.
120. On November 12, 2009, in the brief with observations submitted in the proceedings on the
merits of the case before the Commission and after admissibility report No. 23/09 of March 20,
2009, the State referred to the existence of the ordinary remedy of appeal, the appeal for review,
and the constitutional review, as well as the possibilities of protecting Mr. Díaz Peña’s rights at the
eventual stage of execution of judgment established in the Venezuelan system of criminal
procedure.237
121. The above reveals that the objection does not include the facts relating to “a group of
irregularities in the criminal proceedings,” regarding which the petition was declared inadmissible
and which, therefore, do not form part of the factual framework of the instant case (supra paras.
41 and 46). Consequently, this Court’s analysis will be limited to the “groups of facts” regarding
which the Commission declared the petition admissible: those relating to “the preventive detention
of Mr. Díaz Peña and the duration of the proceedings,” and those relating to “the detention
conditions and the lack of medical care.” Before this, the Court will examine a formal objection filed
by the Commission.
Presumed lack of specificity
122. The Commission has affirmed before this Court that the State’s argument of failure to
exhaust domestic remedies lacked specificity at the appropriate procedural moment, because it had
been of a general nature and had not included a precise indication of the existing remedies. The
Court considers that the Commission’s argument cannot be admitted in general, because when the
State argued the failure to exhaust the domestic remedies, the Commission had not yet divided up
the purpose of the petition into three different elements. As already indicated (supra para. 39),
that division was made by the Commission, at least implicitly, in admissibility report No. 23/09 of
237
Cf. Note AGEV/000537 of November 12, 2009, addressed to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights by
the Agent of the State of Venezuela (evidence file, tome V, folios 3157 to 3176).
45
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