costs. The President of the Court also summoned the alleged victim and an expert witness proposed by the representatives to testify at the public hearing. 8 In the same order, he required the affidavits of the other alleged victim, of four of his family members, of two witnesses offered by the State, an expert witness offered by the State and an expert witness offered by the Commission. 9 In an Order of July 27, 2022, 10 the Court changed the format of the expert opinion of Rogelio Arturo Bárcena Zubieta so that it could be received during the public hearing, and ordered that the expert opinion of Jorge Ulises Carmona be received by means of an affidavit. 11 The public hearing was held on August 26, 2022, during the 150th Regular Session of the Court, which took place in the city of Brasilia, Federative Republic of Brazil. 12 12. Amici curiae. The Court received 18 amicus curiae briefs presented by: 1) the Federal Public Defense Institute; 13 2) Alfonso Jaime Martínez Lazcano; 14 3) Pedro Tamés Fernández; 15 4) the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights (Comisión Mexicana de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos) and the Institute of Procedural Criminal Justice A.C. (IJPP); 16 5) Rommel Sánchez Rodríguez; 17 6) the Observatory of the Inter-American System 8 These persons are: the alleged victim Daniel García Rodríguez, and the expert witness José Ramón Cossío Díaz. These persons are: the alleged victims Reyes Alpízar Ortiz, Maria Magdalena Perez Sifuentes, Denisse Aribel García Pérez, Laura García Rodríguez, and Guillermina Olivárez Barrera; the witnesses offered by the State, Norma Elvira Trejo Luna and José Alberto Buendía Valverde; the expert witness offered by the State, Rogelio Arturo Bárcena Zubieta; and finally the expert witness offered by the Commission, Víctor Manuel Rodríguez Rescia. 9 10 Cf. Case of García Rodríguez et al. v. Mexico. Order of the President of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of July 27, 2022. https://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/asuntos /garcia_rodriguez_y_otro_27_07_22.pdf 11 On July 13, 2022, the State requested reconsideration of the terms established in the Order of the President of July 6, 2022 regarding the format of the hearing, so that the public hearing could be held virtually; in addition, it requested the participation of expert witnesses Ulises Carmona Tinoco and Rogelio Arturo Bárcena Zubieta at the public hearing. 12 The following persons appeared at the hearing: a) for the Inter-American Commission: Esmeralda Arosemena de Troitiño, Commissioner; Jorge Meza Flores and Ignacio Bollier, both advisers of the Commission; b) for the representatives: Simon Alejandro Hernández León and David Peña Rodríguez, and c) for the State: Laura Beatriz Esquivel Valdés, Secretary of Foreign Relations; Alejandro Celorio Alcántara, Legal Adviser; Alfredo Uriel Pérez, Director of International Law; Fabiola Catalina Aparicio Perales, member of the Judiciary Council of the state of Mexico; Joel Alfonso Sierra Palacios, General Legal and Advisory Coordinator of the Judicial Branch of the state of Mexico; Maricela Xiconténcatl Elizaga, Central Legal Prosecutor; Elvira Díaz Salgado, General Coordinator of Litigation; Norma Elvia Trejo Luna, Special Prosecutor for the Investigation of Torture; Leonel Ulises Carrasco Villafuerte, Director of the Human Rights Unit of the Attorney General’s Office of the state of Mexico; Martín Berdeja Rivas, Director General of Human Rights and Gender Equality of the Secretariat for Justice and Human Rights of the Government of the state of Mexico and José Ignacio Felipe Martín del Campo Covarrubias, special analyst of the General Directorate of Human Rights and Gender Equality. 13 The brief signed by Netzaí Sandoval Ballesteros, Director General of the Federal Public Defense Institute, containing an analysis of the conventionality of mandatory pretrial detention. 14 The brief signed by Alfonso Martínez Lazcano, President of the Latin American Association of Procedural Lawyers, regarding the concept of criminal arraigo and mandatory pretrial detention. 15 The brief signed by Pedro Tamés Fernández, father of María de los Ángeles Tamés Pérez, on the facts contained in the submission of the case, and legal considerations on prolonged pretrial detention. 16 The brief signed by Lucía G. Chávez Vargas, Executive Director of the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights A.C. and Javier Carrasco Solís, Executive Director of the Institute of Procedural Criminal Justice A.C., on the origin, content, scope and impact of arraigo on human rights in Mexico and of mandatory or automatic pretrial detention. 17 The brief signed by Rommel Sánchez Rodríguez on: a) the nature of Mexico’s mandatory pretrial detention; b) the constitutional-conventional antinomy and the prevalence of constitutional restrictions, and c) the rights implicated and the problems of mandatory pretrial detention. -6-