7 difference is not one of reckoning as Peru maintains, for the simple reason that time limits set in international and national proceedings are not based on the same criteria. 29. It is true that a distinction is drawn between judicial periods established in days and those established in months or years in some national procedural rules and in the practice of many domestic tribunals. The former are reckoned excluding non-working days and the latter in calendar days. However, this distinction cannot be applied to international tribunals, there being no standard regulation for determining which days are non-working, unless these are expressly stated in the rules of procedure of the international organizations. 30. This situation is more evident in the case of this Court, since it is a jurisdictional body that does not function on a permanent basis and holds its sessions, without need of authorization, on days that may be non-working by the rules established for national tribunals and those of the host country of the Court itself. For this reason, the criteria used in domestic legislation cannot be applied. 31. As the Government maintains, the Rules of Procedure of this Court make no provision similar to that established in Article 77 of the Regulations of the Inter-American Commission, to the effect that all time periods in days, indicated in those Regulations, “shall be understood to be counted as calendar days.” Nonetheless, this provision must be regarded as implicit in the proceedings before this Tribunal since, as stated earlier, the differentiation criterion invoked by Peru cannot be accepted, there being no point of reference -such as that established in domestic procedural legislation- to determine which days are non-working. It is therefore not feasible to use any reckoning other than natural days to establish periods in days, months or years. 32. Two examples corroborate this point: first, the provisions of Article 80(1)(b) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, amended on May 15, 1991, which provides that: [a] period expressed in weeks, months or in years shall end with the expiry of whichever day in the last week, month or year is the same day of the week, or falls on the date, as the day during which the event or action from which the period is to be calculated occurred or took place. If, in a period expressed in months or years, the day on which it should expire does not occur in the last month, the period shall end with the expiry of the last day of that month. Secondly, mention may be made of Articles 46 and 49 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice of the Cartagena Agreement (Andean Agreement) of March 15, 1984. Whereas the former clearly establishes the working days and hours of the Tribunal, as well as its holidays, Article 49 establishes in its first paragraph that: “[t]he periods shall be reckoned in continuous days and calculated excluding the day of the date on which it begins..” Let it be said, however, that both those Tribunals function on a permanent basis. 33. Consequently, if the period of thirty days indicated in Article 31(1) of the Rules of Procedure of this Court should be considered in calendar terms, and the notification of the application was made on February 13, 1995, the date on which it was received by the Government, the deadline was March 13, 1995, whereas the preliminary objection brief reached the Secretariat of the Court on March 24, 1995. 34. The Court has declared that: [i]t is a commonly accepted principle that the procedural system is a means of attaining justice and that the latter cannot be sacrificed for the sake of mere formalities. Keeping within certain timely and reasonable limits, some omissions or delays in complying with procedure may be excused, provided that a suitable balance between justice and legal certainty is preserved (Cayara Case,