7 1. Exhaustion of domestic legal remedies 26. Article 46.1 of the American Convention provides that, for a petition filed with the Inter-American Commission in accordance with Article 44 to be admissible, there must first have been an attempt to exhaust all domestic legal remedies, pursuant to generally recognized principles of international law. The purpose of this requirement is to allow domestic authorities to hear of the alleged violation of a protected right and, if appropriate, to resolve it before the case is heard in an international court. Therefore, if a petitioner claims to have exhausted all domestic legal remedies, the claims lodged with the IACHR must have already been heard by national judicial bodies. 15 27. As for this requirement, the petitioners claim that they exhausted all domestic remedies with the Constitutional Bench’s ruling on February 14, 2005, on the merits of an amparo appeal submitted to its hearing. On the other hand, the State claims that domestic legal remedies were not exhausted given that the petitioner should have turned to the labor courts to pursue those matters that lie beyond the jurisdiction of the amparo appeal, such as aptitude for the job and the legality of the decision to terminate. 28. The Commission considers it pertinent to point out that in order to verify whether there has been compliance with the Convention’s requirement that all domestic legal remedies be exhausted, it must identify the object of the complaint and analyze whether the domestic actions taken could have remedied the alleged complaint. In this regard, the Commission indicates that the object of the complaint in this case refers to alleged discriminatory treatment of Mr. Guevara Díaz in the competitive hiring process to fill a position he had been performing on an interim basis in the Finance Ministry. To that extent, the Commission considers it pertinent to verify if this case was heard by domestic courts through appeals that could have proved to be appropriate and effective in resolving this type of situation at the domestic level.16 29. The information submitted to the case file shows that Mr. Guevara Díaz filed an appeal for reversal seeking replacement and nullification on June 18, 2003. On July 11, 2003, the appeals for nullification and reversal were decided by the Finance Ministry’s superior office and administrative division, which declared the appeals groundless and “out of order”, respectively. On June 18, 2003 the Finance Ministry ruled that the appeal of those decisions were out of order. 30. Also, it is accredited that in the judicial branch, the alleged victim filed an amparo appeal on August 5, 2003 against the Finance Ministry for acts of discrimination in the workplace, alleging that his disability was the grounds for his termination, in which case his rights would have been violated, including those protected by the Constitution, the Convention, and the Protocol of San Salvador. In its ruling of February 14, 2005, the Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court declared without standing the appeal that had been filed, concluding that, “the facts claimed by the appellant do not constitute a threat or violation of his constitutional rights, without prejudice regarding argument over the legality of the procedure used to select candidates to occupy the job Mr. Guevara Díaz wanted, in the appropriate administrative court, because this being a matter that exceeds the jurisdiction of this Constitutional Court.” Specifically, as to the merits of the dispute the Court stated: …examination of the evidence provided and the documents and reports given under oath, we conclude that the appellant was appointed on an interim basis to the position of Miscellaneous 15 16 See IACHR, Report No. 67/01, Tomás Enrique Carvallo Quintana (Argentina), June 14, 2001, paragraph 56. IACHR, Report No. 70704 (Admissibility), petition 667/01, Jesús Manuel Naranjo Cárdenas et. Al, Venezuela, 15 October 2004, paragraph 52; IACHR, Report No. 57/03 (Admissibility), petition 12.337, Marcela Andrea Valdés Díaz, Chile, 10 October 2003, paragraph 40.