13 54. The Inter-American Court, in consonance with the doctrine of the European Court, has insisted on the aspects that must be taken into account to establish, in a specific case, whether there was an unacceptable delay, in other words, whether there has been disregard for the rule of the reasonable term: complexity of the matter, procedural initiative of the interested party, and conduct of the court (or whoever conducted the proceeding, as this point may be examined going beyond criminal prosecution: insofar as there is a proceeding to decide on rights that have been denied, claimed or in doubt). 55. The instant case has addressed the dies a quo and the dies ad quem of the judgment for purposes of reasonable term. It is often said that the proceeding begins when the charges are filed and it concludes when there is a definitive judgment, and that the time between both moments, with their characteristic acts, is subject to measurement under the concept of reasonable term. In principle, this specification may provide guidance and even be sufficient. However, to arrive at conclusions that respond to the concern that is at the basis of reasonable term, we must examine the characteristics of each national prosecution. The panorama is not homogeneous. Therefore, it suggests different solutions, all of them seeking to address the need for the time that an individual is subject to a criminal proceeding –which is a time of reduction, compression, suspension of rights, despite arguments, based on technicalities, that it is otherwise- to truly be the least possible time, precisely to avoid prevalence of uncertainty and to avoid affecting, beyond what is strictly indispensable, the individual’s rights. 56. Saying that reasonable term begins when an individual is detained does not lead to a satisfactory solution in all cases. Actually, it may be that before that moment there has been an ongoing, protracted investigative, and even judicial, proceeding. During this proceeding, the individual was already subjected to pressure and to oppression of his rights. The lawfulness behind this conduct of the State does not in itself –so to speaklegitimize the abuse that may result from an extreme delay in deciding matters during the initial stages of the procedure. That is why it is good that some legal systems have established a certain term –which may be more or less broad- to exhaust an investigation and to decide whether a case will be brought before a judge, when the investigation has been conducted by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, or before the court that hears the case, when the investigation was conducted by an examining judge. 57. It is also possible for the proceeding to take place without the accused being subject to preventive incarceration, whether because he receives the benefit of conditional freedom, or because in his case the law does not allow precautionary measures that restrict liberty. But even in these hypotheticals, it is possible for the prosecution to last an unreasonable amount of time, even if, when it ends, the “alleged innocent” who is accused has not suffered preventive incarceration. 58. We must also pay attention to situations –as in the instant case- when the proceeding enters into a sort of fixed-term “limbo”, as well as others in which the procedure is suspended –whether in the investigative phase or during the trial- for an indefinite time, which only concludes when the statute of limitations enters into effect, but this can be interrupted by acts that seek only said result. It is not always a matter of the old acquittal of action, generally reproved, but rather a sort of “new opportunity” for investigation that hangs like a sword of Damocles over the defendant. 59. Temporary or provisional stays, debatable in themselves, must be foreseen and used with great restraint and, I would add, also with great reserve or reticence. This parenthesis of legal non-definition serves justice poorly. The State must rigorously and