10 appropriate to the statements offered through affidavit in a seven-day term as of their transmission. 32. The brief of final arguments is the last opportunity the parties have to present arguments to the Tribunal regarding the facts in controversy and the evidence that would support those facts, as well as the relevant legal arguments. Without detriment to the aforementioned, the President or the Court may grant the parties the possibility to present observations to the statements offered through affidavit, as in fact occurred in the present case. This opportunity the parties have to refer to the evidence provided by the other parties, whose timely procedural moment is determined y the President or the Court, does not prevent observations from being filed in the public hearing or in the brief of final arguments. Now, when one party presents new objections to the evidence of the counterparty in its brief of final arguments, the counterparty shall have the possibility to respond to those objections. This may occur without it being necessary for the Tribunal to expressly request that response. In the present case the representatives had this possibility (supra para. 14), and therefore there is no reason whatsoever to analyze the State’s objections. 33. The State expressed that the statements given by the witnesses Jiménez Ortega, Irazu Silva, and Tamayo Rodríguez were drawn up by another witness of the present case: Mrs. Salas Viso, and that the statement of the expert Arteaga Sánchez was drawn up by one of the representatives of the alleged victim: Mrs. Marianella Villegas Salazar. 34. In response, the representatives held that in Venezuela “the statement of any person shall be endorsed by an attorney in order for it to be granted before a Notary Public, which does not mean that it has been elaborated or prepared by the attorney It is a mere formality required for its authentication before a notary public.” 35. The Court verifies that the representatives’ statement has grounds, since the witnesses’ affidavits offered by the State present the same characteristics as the affidavits forwarded by the representatives, that is, they indicate they were drawn up by a person, different to the deponent, who is an attorney.21 Therefore, the Tribunal dismisses this objection. 36. The State indicated that the witnesses Salas Viso and Jiménez Ortega have a direct interest in the case due to their conditions of retired judge and dismissed judge of the Judicial Power, and that the first one acknowledged her “friendship and personal solidarity” with the alleged victim. Likewise, it mentioned that the statements of the witnesses Salas Viso, Jiménez Ortega, and Tamayo Rodríguez include personal opinions and not facts they are certain of. It also stated that the statement offered by the witness Irazu Silva “shows a clear interest in hiding the truth of the facts, and lacks all grounds.” 37. The Court verifies that, in effect, the witness Salas Viso auto-defined herself as an “indirect victim”. 22 However, the aforementioned is not reason enough to throughout her statement completely. The same is applicable to the witness Jiménez 21 Cf. statement offered before notary public by José Leonardo Requena Cabello on November 13, 2008, (dossier of merits, Volume III, folio 1039); statement offered before notary public by the witness Damián Adolfo Nieto Carrillo on November 12, 2000 (dossier of merits, Volume III, folio 1055), and statement offered before notary public by the witness Hevia Araujo on November 12, 2008 (dossier of merits, Volume III, folio 1222). 22 Cf. statement offered before notary public by the witness Sala Viso on October 27, 2008 (dossier of merits, Volume III, folio 913).