-7to accede to the Victims’ Legal Aid Fund of the Court and also approved the necessary financial assistance for the presentation of a maximum of two statements and an expert witness, either at a hearing or by affidavit. Later, by Order of the President of March 26, 2014, assistance was granted to cover the necessary travel and lodging costs so that Mr. Bejarano Laura might appear at the public hearing to be held at the Court on May 22, 2014. 9. Public hearing. – By Order of the President of the Court of March 26, the parties were convoked to a public hearing5 in order to receive their final oral arguments and observations on the preliminary objections and eventual merits, reparations and costs, as well as to receive the statements of the alleged victim, of a witness proposed by the State and of an expert offered by the Commission.6 By communications of March 28 and April 21, 2014, the State and the Commission, respectively, informed the Court’s Secretariat that the witnesses that had been offered would not be able to attend the public hearing and, therefore, requested that they be permitted to provide affidavits. The President, therefore, informed the parties and the Commission that Mr. Bejarano Laura would be the only witness in the public hearing. 10. Final written arguments and observations. – On June 23, 2014, the State and the representatives presented their final written arguments and annexes. That same day, the Commission presented its final written observations. On July 24 and 25, 2014, the representatives and the State, respectively, presented their observations on the annexes to the final written arguments. The Commission did not present observations to those arguments. 11. Disbursements in application of the Victims’ Fund. – On September 19, 2014, the State sent its observations to the report on the disbursements made in application of the Victims’ Fund, which was transmitted to it by the Court’s Secretariat on September 12, 2014. III JURISDICTION 12. Peru ratified the Convention on July 28, 1978 and recognized the contentious jurisdiction of the Court on January 21, 1981. The State has filed two preliminary objections that allege that the Court does not have jurisdiction to hear the present case (infra para. 13). Therefore, the Court will first decide on the preliminary objections and then, if applicable, it will rule on the merits and the requested reparations. IV. PRIOR CONSIDERATION 13. The State presented two preliminary objections, the first of which refers to the “inappropriateness of the representatives presenting new allegations and arguments that were not raised by the Commission in its Merits Report” and the second with respect to a claim of a “fourth instance,” related to the claim of the review of domestic judicial decisions that had observed due process. Attending the public hearing were: for the Commission, James Louis Cavallaro, Silvia Serrano Guzmán and Jorge Meza Flores; for the representatives, Gisela Astocondor Salazar and Jorge Antonio Abrego, and for the State, Luís Alberto Huerta Guerrero, Iván Arturo Bazán Chacón and Mauricio César Arbulú Castrillón. 5 The witnesses convoked to declare in the public hearing were Luís Alberto Bejarano Laura, alleged victim; Pablo Talavera Elguera, witness proposed by the State, and Nubia Serrano Wittingham, expert offered by the Commission. 6