considered that the Court should have understood that it had filed a preliminary objection and that this period for observations should be granted, it should have advised the Court when it forwarded its answer, but it did not. It was only recently, during the public hearing in this case, that the State asserted that it had filed a preliminary objection in the answering brief and that, “although it had not included a special chapter entitled ‘preliminary objection,’ it had mentioned that many of the individuals represented by the Commission lacked legitimacy, because they had not exhausted the domestic remedies.” 56. According to this Court’s Rules of Procedure, in its answering brief the State should file its preliminary objections, as well as refer to the alleged facts and the claims concerning the merits and reparations made by the Inter-American Commission and the representatives of the alleged victims. Since preliminary objections are not filed in a previous brief, separate from the one where the State must answer the merits of the case, the State must file its preliminary objections clearly, so that they are not mistaken for its arguments to contest the facts and claims. 57. Furthermore, the Court notes that, in its answering brief, the State indicated, fundamentally, that the final negative decision issued in the administrative procedure before the Central Bank of Uruguay “constituted an administrative act that could be contested,” and regarding which it was possible to file an appeal for annulment before the Contentious-Administrative Tribunal, but that only 38 alleged victims filed that judicial remedy. In this regard, the Commission and the representatives argued that the remedy of annulment was neither appropriate nor effective to resolve the claims of the alleged victims and that, by failing to provide a remedy “that was able to examine all the factual and legal issues related to the dispute,” the State had violated Article 25 of the Convention. 58. The Court finds that, in the circumstances of the instant case, the analysis of the domestic remedies available and filed is directly related to the merits of the alleged violations of Articles 8 and 25 of the Convention. In cases in which States have filed the objection of failure to exhaust domestic remedies and the analysis of such remedies “is closely related to the merits,”29 the Court’s case law has been consistent in analyzing the arguments relating to the preliminary objection together with the other issues concerning the merits.30 Consequently, the Court finds that, in the instant case, even if Uruguay had, in its answering brief, clearly filed a preliminary objection, it would have been necessary to analyze the corresponding arguments of the parties in connection with the merits of the case, in order to determine whether Articles 8 and 25 of the American Convention had been violated. 59. Based on the above, the Court establishes that the information and arguments presented by the State concerning the remedies available in the domestic jurisdiction, their use by the alleged victims in this case, and their effectiveness, will be considered when determining the facts of the instant case and when ruling on the alleged violations of Articles 8 and 25 of the American Convention. VI 29 Cf. Case of Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras. Preliminary objections. Judgment of June 26, 1987. Series C No. 1, para. 91; Case of Fairén Garbi and Solís Corrales v. Honduras. Preliminary objections. Judgment of June 26, 1987. Series C No. 2, para. 90; and Case of Castañeda Gutman v. Mexico. Preliminary objections, Merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of August 6, 2008. Series C No. 184, para. 34. 30 Cf. Case of Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras. Preliminary objections. Judgment of June 26, 1987. Series C No. 1, para. 96; Case of Salvador Chiriboga v. Ecuador. Preliminary objection and merits. Judgment of May 6, 2008. Series C No. 179, para. 45, and Case of Castañeda Gutman v. Mexico. Preliminary objections, merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of August 6, 2008. Series C No. 184, para. 35. 18