34. The Commission has competence ratione loci to take cognizance of this petition since it alleges violations of rights guaranteed by the American Convention that purportedly occurred in the territory of a State party. C. Exhaustion of domestic remedies 35. Article 46(1)(a) of the American Convention states: 1. Admission by the Commission of a petition or communication lodged in accordance with Articles 44 or 45 shall be subject to the following requirements: a. that the remedies under domestic law have been pursued and exhausted in accordance with generally recognized principles of international law[.] 36. The Commission and the Court have repeatedly insisted on their “reinforcing and complementary” 6 status within the inter-American system of protection of human rights. 7 This status is reflected in Article 46(1)(a) of the Convention, which permits States parties to decide cases within their own legal framework, before there is need for recourse to an international proceeding. 37. The Convention provides for certain exceptions in cases in which the exhaustion of domestic remedies is impracticable. One such situation is provided for under Article 46(2)(b), which provides that it is not necessary to exhaust domestic remedies when the "party alleging violation of his rights has been denied access to the remedies under domestic law or has been prevented from accessing them[.]" 38. In the instant case, the Petitioners allege that they have been denied access to remedies because the Public Ministry, which has the sole power to initiate investigation and prosecution for so called "public action" crimes, has failed to initiate investigations into the crimes denounced by the Petitioners. The Petitioners first denounced such crimes to the Public Ministry on January 31, 2002, two years before the drafting of this opinion. 39. When a petitioner alleges that he or she is unable to exhaust domestic remedies, Article 31(3) of the Commission's Rules of Procedure provide that the burden then shifts to the government to demonstrate which specific domestic remedies continue to offer effective relief for the harm alleged. However, the State may expressly or tacitly waive its right to raise the issue of exhaustion of domestic remedies. Specifically, if the State does not respond to the petition in a timely manner and express its arguments regarding exhaustion of domestic remedies, this constitutes a tacit waiver of the non-exhaustion argument. 8 In this case, the petition was transmitted to the State on August 19, 2003, with a period of two months given to the State to respond. As of the date of this report, the State had not submitted any observations. Therefore, the State has tacitly waived its right to allege non-exhaustion of domestic remedies. D. Deadline for submission of the petition to the IACHR 40. In the petition under consideration, the IACHR has concluded that the State of Venezuela tacitly renounced its right to assert the objection of failure to exhaust domestic remedies, as a result of which the requirement of Article 46(1)(b) of the American Convention is not applicable. However, the provisions of the Convention requiring the prior exhaustion of domestic remedies and the lodging of the petition within a period of six months from the date of the final judgment of the domestic jurisdiction are independent. The Inter-American Commission must therefore determine whether the petition under review was presented within 6 7 American Convention on Human Rights, Preamble, para. 2. See eg, Velásquez Rodríguez Case, supra note 4, para. 61; IACHR, Resolution Nº 15/89, Case 10.208, Dominican Republic, April 14, 1989, Conclusions, para. 5. 8 See, eg., IACHR, Report Nº 31/031, Case 12.195, Admisibility, Mario Alberto Jara Oñate and others, Chile, March 7, 2003, para. 35; IACtHR, The Mayagna (Sumo) Awas Tingi Community Case, Preliminary Objections,Judgment of February 1, 2000, para. 53. 8