5 parents; establishment of an internal complaint mechanism to settle disputes, and the guarantee of the right to education, without any distinction based on nationality. Furthermore, with regard to compensation, they requested non-pecuniary damages for the children and their next of kin, and consequential damages for the children’s next of kin. 18. On March 6, 2000, during its one hundred and sixth regular session, the Commission held a hearing on a possible friendly settlement in this case. On that occasion, the petitioners’ representatives reiterated the requests submitted in their proposed friendly settlement and, at the end of the hearing, they asked the Commission to terminate the friendly settlement procedure. For its part, the State indicated that the case of the Yean and Bosico children was not an isolated case and that domestic remedies had not been exhausted. The State also advised that the registration procedure requirements established by Act No. 659 of July 17, 1944, on Civil Status Acts (hereinafter “Act No. 659”) are of a general nature and are not discriminatory, because it is a national law; accordingly, accepting the children’s request would entail violating domestic law. 19. On March 6, 2000, the State submitted a brief on the arguments presented during the hearing before the Commission and indicated that: (a) “the [State] finds it unacceptable that the [children] are attempting to obtain a birth certificate illegally [...]; a late declaration made without respecting the provisions of [Act No. 659] would be absolutely void;” (b) “the requirements of [the Central Electoral] Board are obligatory for all those on Dominican territory [and] the Public Prosecutor’s refusal to accept the [late] declaration [...] was based [...] on the fact that the obligatory legal requirements had not been fulfilled;” and (c) “the procedure exhausted by the [children] concluded with the ruling of the Public Prosecutor of the District of Monte Plata.” In this regard, article 41 of Act No. 659 establishes that “[t]he Civil Status Registrar who has received a late declaration of birth shall immediately forward a certified copy of the record to the Public Prosecutor of the corresponding judicial district, who [...] shall authorize the court of first instance [to consider the matter, and that court shall] make a ruling ratifying or not the record of the late declaration. [...] It is therefore evident that domestic remedies have not been exhausted in the instant case.” 20. On May 2, 2000, the petitioners’ representatives indicated that “they ha[d] exhausted the pertinent domestic remedies [and that] they [did] not have to exhaust any other remedy before the Central Electoral Board or any other Dominican institution, because such remedies were neither appropriate nor effective.” In this regard, they repeated that “there was no recognized procedure for making an appeal before the Central Electoral Board,” and they mentioned that article 6 of Electoral Act No. 275-97 of December 21, 1997, stipulated that the decisions of the Central Electoral Board may not be appealed. This is confirmed in the case law of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Dominican Republic (hereinafter “Supreme Court of Justice”), so there was no possibility of a judicial review of the decisions of the Central Electoral Board. Regarding compliance with article 41 of Act No. 659, they stated that, on the one hand, the remedy addressed to the Public Prosecutor was an appropriate response to the refusal of the Civil Status Registrar to issue the birth certificates and, on the other hand, “there is no legal provision establishing the obligation or the possibility” of appealing before the court of first instance, because the Public Prosecutor is responsible for transmitting late declarations to that court and “there is no provision that authorizes the [children] to do this themselves.”