7 In this case and on this aspect, what was required was to accept or to reject the said preliminary objection based on the legal and factual grounds asserted in the proceedings, which relate to the moment at which it was considered that the requirement of prior exhaustion of domestic remedies was or was not complied with, and not that it was not essential to comply with this. On this basis then it could even be considered that the Judgment distanced itself from the spirit of the Court’s case law, in the sense that, just as “… it is not for the international organs to rectify the lack of precision in the State’s arguments,”18 nor should this be done, based on the principle of procedural balance or equality, with regard to those presented by the petitioners or by the Commission. It could also be affirmed that, by proceeding in this way, the Judgment establishes the precedent that, in some cases, the rule of the prior exhaustion of domestic remedies could be rendered meaningless or excessively relativized. Thus, this would occur to the extent to which, by allowing the petitioner to lodge a petition with the Commission even before the pertinent proceedings in the domestic jurisdiction had ended, based on the presumption that its final judgment would be a conviction, not only would this be accepting the coexistence of the proceedings of the said jurisdiction and of the interAmerican jurisdiction with regard to the same case, but also, it could cause this to happen in other cases, and even that the latter jurisdiction be used to exert pressure of some kind on the former. In this way, the Judgment would be inconsistent with the reinforcing, complementary or subsidiary nature of the inter-American jurisdiction in relation to the domestic jurisdiction established in the second preambular paragraph of the Convention transcribed above because, instead, it would be substituting the latter. In short, since accepting what is affirmed in the Judgment and transcribed above creates a high level of legal uncertainty with regard to the requirement of prior exhaustion of domestic remedies, I am unable to share the decision to reject the preliminary objection filed by the State in this regard, particularly when it is evident that this requirement was not met. 2. Moment at which the requirement of prior exhaustion of domestic remedies should be complied with As mentioned above, in these proceedings, the dispute relates to when the requirement of the prior exhaustion of domestic remedies should be met. And, as also indicated, there is no ruling, at least directly and legally, on this point in the Judgment. In other words, it did not rule between the State’s claim that this requirement must be met before the pertinent petition is lodged19 and the Commission’s claim that this should occur before its decision on the admissibility of the petition.20 To the contrary, as grounds for the decision taken on the obligation of prior exhaustion of domestic remedies, the Judgment states that “[r]egarding the lodging of the initial petition before the Commission, it has been verified that the alleged victim sent this document on August 22, 2003, and that, at that date, the final judgment in the criminal proceedings against him had not yet been delivered, but was handed down on 18 Para. 16. 19 Para. 11. 20 Para. 12.

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