2 Commission decided to submit the case to the jurisdiction of the Court. The Commission appointed Florentín Meléndez, Commissioner, and Santiago A. Canton, Executive Secretary, as delegates and the lawyers, Ariel E. Dulitzky, Elizabeth Abi-Mershed, Juan Pablo Albán Alencastro and Mario López Garelli as legal advisers. 2. According to the Commission, the application “relates to the inexistence in the domestic sphere of a simple and effective remedy to claim the constitutionality of political rights and the consequent impediment for Jorge Castañeda Gutman […] to register his independent candidacy for the presidency of Mexico” in the elections held in July 2006. 3. In the application, the Commission asked the Court to declare that “Mexico is responsible for the violation, to the detriment of Jorge Castañeda Gutman, of the right to judicial protection embodied in Article 25 of the American Convention on Human Rights, in relation to the general obligations to respect and ensure human rights and to adopt all legislative or other measures to make the protected rights effective, in accordance with Articles 1(1) and 2 of the Convention.” The Commission also asked the Court to order the State to adopt certain measures of reparation and to reimburse costs and expenses. 4. On June 5, 2007 Jorge Castañeda Gutman, alleged victim in the instant case, and his representatives, Fabián M. Aguinaco, Gonzalo Aguilar Zínser and Santiago Corcuera (hereinafter “the alleged victim” or, indistinctly, “the representatives”), presented their brief with pleas and motions (hereinafter “brief with pleas and motions”), under Article 23 of the Rules of Procedure. In this brief, they asked the Court, based on the facts described by the Commission in its application, to declare the violation of the rights to participate in government, to equal protection, and to judicial protection established in Articles 23, 24, and 25 of the American Convention, all in relation to Articles 1(1) and 2 thereof. Mr. Castañeda Gutman also indicated that, if the Court considered that they had omitted “possible violations to other rights embodied in the Convention […] such as those established in Articles 1, 2, 8(1), 13, 16, 29 and 30 of the Convention [in their brief], the Court should issue a ruling in this regard.” Lastly, he asked the Court to order measures of reparation for the violation of his rights. 5. On September 11, 2007, the State submitted a brief in which it filed preliminary objections, answered the application, and presented observations on the brief with pleas and motions. The State requested, inter alia, that the Court consider that “the preliminary objections it had filed were admissible and founded […] and, consequently, declare that it was not competent to hear and decide” this case; or, if applicable, that the Court “conclude and declare the inexistence of violations to the human rights established in the American Convention […],” or eventually, if it declared the State’s responsibility “and decided that some type of reparation was appropriate,” that the Court “establish this respecting the considerations and the limits established by the State.” The State appointed Juan Manuel Gómez Robledo Verduzco as its Agent, and Joel Antonio Hernández García, María Carmen Oñate Muñoz and Alejandro Negrín Muñoz as Deputy Agents.1 II PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE COURT 1 Cf. the State’s brief of May 31, 2007, received on June 1, 2007 (merits file, tome I, folios 108 to 110).