-5IV PROCEEDING BEFORE THE COURT 20. On June 25, 2003, the Inter-American Commission filed an application with the Court (supra para. 1), together with documentary evidence and offered to submit testimonies of witnesses and expert witnesses as further evidence. The Commission appointed Marta Altolaguirre and Santiago A. Canton as delegates and Ariel Dulitzky and Pedro E. Díaz as legal counsel. 21. On September 16, 2003, the Secretariat of the Court (hereinafter “The Secretariat”), following instructions issued by the Court en banc pointed out to the Commission that, as regards the disagreement of the representatives of the alleged victims to designate a common intervener according to Article 23(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court, the Court decided to request the Commission to coordinate with the alleged victims so that they appoint a common intervener, as soon as possible, in order to proceed to serve the application. 22. On September 24, 2003, the Commission filed a brief wherein it stated, inter alia, that “as regards the designation of a common intervener [...], in spite of the numerous requests made by the Commission to the representatives of the victims, [...] they have expressed that they have not reached an agreement in that respect.” The Commission requested the Court to “make the appropriate ruling pursuant to the provisions set forth in Article 23(3).” 23. On October 24, and November 3, 2003, the Secretariat, after a preliminary examination of the application by the President, served the said application and its appendixes on the State and on the common intervener for the representatives of the alleged victims (hereinafter “the common intervener”) respectively. The Secretariat also notified the State of the term within which it had to answer the application and to appoint its agents in the proceedings. Likewise, following the instructions of the President, the State was informed of its right to appoint an ad hoc judge to participate in determining the case. Likewise, the Secretariat notified the parties that regarding the disagreement of the representatives to designate a common intervener according to Article 23 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court, the Court ruled that the common intervener to represent the alleged victims would be the one identified as group “a” in the application (powers of attorney granted to Ana María Zegarra-Laos, Manuel Antonio Condori-Araujo, Wilfredo Castillo-Sabalaga, Guillermo Nicolás Castro-Barlena, and Celestina Mercedes Aquino-Laurencio) due to the fact that they represented the greatest number of alleged victims that had granted powers of attorney. The Court further ruled that the common intervener had to submit only one brief with their requests, their arguments and their evidence, and also stated that it would be advisable that the different groups of representatives meet and try to submit, through the common intervener, only one single brief with their requests, their arguments and their evidence in the name and on behalf of all the groups of representatives designated in the application. Regarding the alleged victims that were not represented or did not have representation, the Court ruled that the Commission had to see to the protection of their interests to ensure that they would be effectively represented in the different procedural stages before the Court. 24. On November 5, 8, and 20, 2003, respectively, Pablo Gregorio Gonza-Tito, Manuel Saavedra-Rivera, Alfredo Ruiz-Mimbela, Cristina Rojas-Poccorpachi, Héctor Paredes-Márquez and Rubén Canales-Pereyra, representatives of the alleged victims