unfounded. As to violation of the guarantee of due process, the State maintained that the petitioners did not during the proceedings before the courts file any action designed to stop the alleged violation of due process. Accordingly, the Peruvian State considered that the failure to pursue the remedies provided by domestic law resulted in the loss of the right to petition the IACHR. 13. The State argued that in the domestic sphere the Peruvian state has undergone a process of modernization and that, more specifically, the Congress has been redesigned, which has led to a 50% reduction in the overall number of members of Congress and the axing of a large number of jobs. 14. The State held that the petition is inadmissible inasmuch as domestic remedies had not been exhausted at the time it was lodged. 15. As to Case 12.038, the State requested its joinder to Case 11.830, since both concerned the same events and the same allegedly injured persons. IV. ANALYSIS A. The Commission’s Competence ratione personae, ratione materiae andratione temporis 16. Under Article 44 of the American Convention the petitioners are entitled to lodge petitions with the IACHR. 1 Those petitions name as alleged victims individuals, in respect of whom Peru undertook to respect and ensure the rights enshrined in the Convention. 2 Insofar as the State is concerned, the Commission observes that Peru became a state party to the American Convention upon ratifying it on July 28, 1978. Accordingly, the Commission is competent ratione personae to examine the petitions. 17. The Commission is also competent ratione materiae and ratione temporis, inasmuch as the facts alleged in the respective petitions tend to establish violations of rights protected by the American Convention, and by reason of that fact that the events in question have purportedly occurred during or after 1992, when the duty to respect and ensure the rights recognized in the Convention was in force for the Peruvian State. B. Admissibility requirements for the petition a. Exhaustion of domestic remedies 18. The Peruvian State claims that the petition in Case 11.830, received by the IACHR on October 18, 1997, was lodged prior to exhaustion of the remedies under domestic law. The decision of the Constitutional Court, which -both parties agree- exhausted the remedies under domestic law, was issued on November 24, 1997, and published on January 12, 1998. 19. In respect of the above, the Commission observes that the aforementioned petition was indeed lodged prior to exhaustion of the remedies under domestic law. Such a circumstance, however, is not stand in the way of its admissibility at the current stage of the case. The admissibility requirements to be met by a petition must be examined, generally speaking, at the moment at which the Commission pronounces on its admissibility. Article 46 of the Convention states that “[A]dmission by the Commission of a petition or communication lodged in 1 Without prejudice to its authority to pronounce on this point in its decision on the merits, the IACHR finds that in the case under review the legal standing of the petitioners has not been questioned. 2 In light of the fact that both the petition in Case 11.830 and that in Case 12.038 specifically name a number of -persons, while adding the phrase “and others”, and that while processing the case the IACHR has received from the petitioners various lists of names of alleged victims, as well as having also received joinder applications from other persons asking to be named as alleged victims, the IACHR regards as alleged victims all the persons covered by the decision of the Constitutional Court of November 24, 1997, who are specifically named in the annex to the instant report. The foregoing without prejudice to holding as alleged victims the respective relatives of the deceased persons who are on that list, or diminishing such decisions as the IACHR might adopt in respect of other incidents that might arise. 3