10 41. On October 13, 1997, the Commission submitted its observations on the State’s offer. It affirmed that Mr. Trejo-Duque’s testimony was time-barred, that to accept it would impair the integrity of the proceeding, and requested that the Court reject it. 42. On October 16, 1997, the President "[c]all[ed] upon the State of Guatemala to present Mr. Julio Aníbal Trejo-Duque as a witness in the instant Case." The President also summoned the parties to a public hearing to be held at the seat of the Court on November 13, 1997, for the purpose of hearing the witness’ testimony; he further requested them to present their observations thereon and granted them a term of 15 days for submitting to the Court in their written closing arguments, any amendments they deemed necessary. 43. On October 28, 1997, the Commission requested that the Court postpone the date for presentation of written closing arguments to give it the opportunity to hear and examine Mr. Trejo-Duque’s testimony. The State concurred in its observations to the Commission’s request. Accordingly, the President extended the deadline fixed in his Order of October 16, 1997, for presentation of written closing arguments and decided that the new deadline would be one month from the date on which the transcripts of all the Court’s public hearings were delivered to the parties. 44. On October 29 the State submitted two briefs in which it requested the Court to admit four files as part of the evidence. On the same day, at the President’s instruction, the Secretariat requested the Inter-American Commission to submit its observations on that offer by November 4, 1997, at the latest. 45. On November 4, 1997, the Inter-American Commission declared that the State’s requests should be dismissed because (1) they are clearly time-barred and breach the terms of Article 43 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court; (2) the State has neither invoked nor substantiated any argument that the conditions necessary for an exception to the requirements of Article 43, and (3) the State has not demonstrated the files’ legal relevance to the merits of the case, and requested that the Court reject them. On November 6 of the same year the President "[r]eject[ed], as inadmissible, the documents offered by the State of Guatemala on October 30 and 31, 1997, as evidence in the instant case," since they had been in the State’s possession since between 1987 and 1989 and there was no evidence of force majeure or grave impediment to obtaining them at an earlier date. 46. On November 12, 1997, the State submitted two briefs in which it appealed against the President’s Order of November 6 and requested that "inasmuch as the documents provided [were] evidence needed for rendering a correct decision, they be admitted as evidence as a matter of course." On November 14, 1997, the Court decided to uphold the Order appealed on the basis of the following consideration among others: [t]hat the Court endorses the President’s criterion that the time-barred presentation of evidence is admissible only in "extremely aggravated circumstances which the State has in no way justified." In this connection, the State’s claim that "it would be an unacceptable fiction to claim that the Principal Agent of the State of Guatemala knew or was aware of everything" is inadmissible, since the Rules of Procedure grant the respondent State, represented by its Agent, sufficient time in which to prepare its defense. 47. On November 13, 1997, the Court heard the statement of witness Julio Aníbal Trejo-Duque at a public hearing. There appeared before the Court: