to suspend the deadline of Article 51 of the American Convention. 3. Submission to the Court. On April 3, 2020, the Commission submitted to the InterAmerican Court all the facts and human rights violations described in Report No. 164/19, “given the need to obtain justice and reparation.” 2 The Court notes that approximately seven years and six months have elapsed between the presentation of the initial petition before the Commission and the submission of the case before the Court. 4. Requests of the Inter-American Commission. Based on the foregoing, the Commission asked the Court to find and declare the State’s international responsibility for the violations indicated in its Merits Report (supra para. 2(c)) and to order the State to implement the measures of reparation described and analyzed in Chapter VIII of this judgment. II PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE COURT 5. Notification to the State and the representatives. On August 5, 2020, the Court notified the State and the representatives of the alleged victims 3 (hereinafter “the representatives”) of the submission of the case by the Commission. 6. Brief with pleadings, motions and evidence. On October 5, 2020, the Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples Clinic of Suffolk University Law School 4 submitted to the Court a brief with pleadings, motions and evidence (hereinafter “pleadings and motions brief”), as legal representative of the aforementioned indigenous communities, pursuant to Articles 25 and 40 of the Court’s Rules of Procedure. The representatives agreed substantially with the arguments of the Commission and asked the Court to declare the violation of Articles 1(1), 2, 13, 24 and 26 of the Convention. They also requested various measures of reparation and the reimbursement of costs and expenses. 7. Answering brief. On January 21, 2021, the State 5 presented before the Court its answering brief in response to the submission of the case and Merits Report of the InterAmerican Commission and to the leadings and motions brief of the representatives (hereinafter “answer” or “answering brief”). In this brief, the State raised a preliminary objection and challenged the alleged violations and the requests for measures of reparation submitted by the Commission and the representatives. 8. Observations on the preliminary objection. On March 15, 2021, the representatives and 2 The Commission appointed Commissioner Esmeralda Arosemena de Troitiño, then Executive Secretary Paulo Abrão, and then Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, Edison Lanza as its delegates. It also appointed Marisol Blanchard Vera, Assistant Executive Secretary, Jorge Humberto Meza Flores, lawyer of the Executive Secretariat of the Commission and Cecilia Maria La Hoz Barrera, lawyer of the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, as legal advisers. 3 The representatives of the alleged victims are the Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples Clinic of Suffolk University Law School; Nicole Friederichs, attorney and director of said Clinic; Cultural Survival, Inc., Sobrevivencia Cultural ; the Asociación Mujb'ab'l Yol; and attorney Cristian Otzín Poyón, of the Nim Ajpu Association of Maya Attorneys and Notaries of Guatemala. 4 The Inter-American Commission appointed Nicole Friederichs, an attorney and Director of the Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples Clinic of the Suffolk University Law School, as representative of the alleged victims (the four indigenous communities mentioned previously). Ms. Friederichs, along with Ms. Amy Van Zyl-Chavarro and law students Rebecca Brouillette, Suna Garcia Guzman, Michaela Hinckley-Gordon Shushrusha Lamsal and Joshua Lutts, as members of the Clinic, signed the pleadings and motions brief. 5 On September 4, 2020, the State accredited Mr. Jorge Luis Donado Vivar, Attorney General of the Nation, as its agent before the Court, and Ana Luisa Gatica Palacios, Director of the International Affairs Unit of the Attorney General’s Office, and Lilian Elizabeth Nájera Reyes, of the International Affairs Unit of the Attorney General’s Office, as alternate agents. -4-