decides not to admit this documentation, because its presentation does not meet the
requirements of Article 57(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
134. Documents presented with the final written arguments. 91 The State and the
representatives presented documents with their final written arguments, and the Court
will only admit those that were sent in order to respond to the questions asked by the
judges during the hearing, with the exception of those that the Court refers to below.
135. Observations of the State on the annexes presented with the representatives’ final
arguments. On January 17, 2014, the State presented its observations on the documents
attached to the representatives’ final written arguments (supra para. 18). On that
occasion, the State also included other observations on one presumed victim and on the
representatives’ final written arguments that were not admissible because the State’s brief
was not a new opportunity to present allegations. Therefore, the Court will only consider
the State’s observations on the documents presented by the representatives with their
final written arguments that had not been incorporated into the proceedings previously 92
and, with regard to these documents, will examine the objections raised by the Dominican
Republic. Regarding some expense vouchers, the State’s objections will be analyzed below
(infra para. 139). In addition, as regards the “Concluding observations on the thirteenth
and fourteenth periodic reports of the Dominican Republic [(advance or unedited
version)], of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination,” it asked the
Court to declare this document inadmissible, “because it was submitted outside the time
frame established in Article 40[.2.b)] of the Rules of Procedure [and] did not qualify as
supervening evidence under Article 57[.2] of the Rules of Procedure,” because the
representatives had not justified its presentation. In this regard, the representatives
asked the Court to include this document in the case file as supervening “evidence,”
because it had been issued after the presentation of the motions and arguments brief on
October 30, 2012. Based on the arguments of the parties and having verified that this
report were issued by the said Committee after the presentation of the motions and
arguments brief, the Court incorporates it into the body of evidence, as supervening
evidence.
136. The representatives’ observations on the annexes presented with the final arguments
of the State. In their observations, the representatives alleged that the State, in its final
arguments, had listed a series of documents related to the judgment issued by the
Constitutional Court on September 23, 2013, which were not presented although, in some
cases, an electronic link where they could be found was indicated. Consequently, they
indicated that “those documents that were announced, but not presented and no link to a
website was given where they could be located, cannot be considered part of the body of
evidence.” They added, with regard to the documents that could be located, because the
link had been indicated, that “they merely reflect the State’s position with regard to the
91
The Court recalls that the final arguments are essentially an opportunity to systematize factual and legal
arguments presented at the appropriate moment, and not a stage to present new facts and/or additional legal
arguments, because the other parties would be unable to respond to them. Consequently, the Court stipulates
that it will only consider in its decision the final written arguments that are strictly related to the evidence and
legal arguments that have already been provided at the appropriate procedural moment, or to the helpful
evidence requested by a judge or the Court and, if applicable, to the exceptions established in Article 57 of the
Rules of Procedure, which, if necessary, will be indicated in this Judgment in the corresponding section. To the
contrary, any new pleading presented in the final written arguments will be inadmissible, as time-barred, save for
the exceptions under Article 43 of the Rules of Procedure.
92
The documents provided by the representatives with their final written arguments included the following,
as identified by the representatives: (a) “[c]opy of the photograph of Abelardo Medina shown to Willian Medina
during the public hearing,” and (b) “[h]istorical documents provided by [expert witness] Bridget Wooding.” These
documents had already been incorporated into the proceedings; thus the State had been able to refer to them in
its final arguments.
40
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