filed within five days from notification.”326 In the instant case, on November 18, 1996 the State appealed the judicial decision that rejected the preliminary objection based on the statute of limitations and set the fees. After several steps taken for the EMGE to provide justification for its appeal, on March 24, 1997 the EMGE indicated that it was appealing the fees because they were too high. The Court notes that, despite exceeding - by approximately 4 months - the term legally established for that purpose, on March 26, 1997 the judge granted the appeal (supra para. 87). 186. Therefore, from the arguments presented by the State there are no specific reasons to justify why a civil suit that should not have lasted more than two years (supra para. 174) ended up lasting over twelve years. As previously mentioned, the actions of the petitioner are not the direct cause of this delay, and thus it is clear that there was a lack of diligence on the part of the judicial authorities who were in charge of the judicial proceedings in relation to the terms and conditions established for civil proceedings. In light of the above, the Court concludes that the judicial authority did not act in a manner conducive to ensuring compliance with the procedural terms, did not fulfill the duty to “[t]ake measures conducive to preventing the stalling of the proceedings,”327 and, even though the matter involved compensation for the disability of a minor, [the judge] did not use his procedural authority, did not grant preferential processing,328 did not request the participation of the Juvenile Public Defender, and in general did not act with the special diligence required to resolve this matter under consideration. C.4.2) Actions of other State authorities as the defendant party or other State authorities involved 187. The Court emphasizes that in this case the defendant was the State, more specifically the EMGE, and therefore it deems it necessary to analyze the actions of the state authorities that acted as counterpart, in order to establish whether the delays in the instant case were attributable to them. Specifically, the Court notes that the following procedural steps were taken by the defendant: i) on February 27, 1996 the notice of the suit was served and on September 3, 1996 the EMGE provided the response to the petition (supra para. 85), in other words, more than four months after the legal deadline; ii) the EMGE did not attend the settlement hearing convened in the process, arguing that the institution did not have the authority to reach a settlement (supra para. 88). 188. The Court further notes that other state institutions were involved in the process. Among them, it is worth examining the actions of the Property Registry and the Cadastre Office. These agencies took several steps to determine ownership of the property where the accident occurred (supra para. 83). In light of these facts, the Court finds that these steps were not efficient; in addition to taking more than three years, information was only provided on the owner of plot 2, and in the end the petitioner had to withdraw the official letters requesting information “in light of the negative outcome” (supra para. 83 and 84). As mentioned previously, this period contributed significantly to the delay in the process, and the judge did not take steps in his position as director of the proceedings to prevent the delays in these actions (supra para. 186). 326 Cf. Article 224 of the CPCCN, Law 17.454/1967, text ordered by Decree 1042/1981 (file of appendices to the brief of pleadings and motions, volume VII, page 3154). 327 Cf. Article 36, clause 1 of the CPCCN, Law 17.454/1967, text ordered by Decree 1042/1981 (file of appendices to the brief of pleadings and motions, volume VII, page 3154). 328 Cf. Regulations of the National Justice System, Approved 17/12/1352, Article 36. 60