9 and the testimonial statements made before notary public provided by the common intervenors (supra para. 47). 53. On October 20 and 24, 2006, on the instructions of the President and in the terms of Article 45(2) of the Rules of Procedure, the Secretariat again requested the parties to forward documentation and information to be considered as useful evidence, which should be remitted by October 27 and 30, 2006, respectively, at the latest. On October 26, 27 and 30, and on November 1, 10 and 13, 2006, the State, the Commission, and the common intervenors, respectively, presented part of the useful evidence requested by the Court, after an extension had been granted to the intervenors. V PRELIMINARY OBJECTIONS 54. In the brief answering the application and with observations on the requests and arguments brief, the State filed three preliminary objections, which it called: “(a) objection based on expiration; (b) legal defects, and (c) lack of legitimacy to act.” The Court will now consider them in the same order. FIRST PRELIMINARY OBJECTION “Objection based on expiration” The State’s arguments 55. The Commission’s Rules of Procedure do not establish the procedure of adhesion. However, this institution admitted several adhesions to the petitions in cases Nos. 11,830 and 12,038, with the further problem that they were admitted when the six-month period following the exhaustion of domestic remedies had expired; in other words, after January 12, 1998, the date on which the judgment delivered by the Constitutional Court in this case was published. These adhesions were admitted by the Commission in July 1998, February, July and November 1998, and July and November 1999. This fact resulted in almost all the adhering petitioners being considered alleged victims in the application, even though their adhesion was time-barred. Consequently, the State requested the Court to exclude the alleged victims who “adhered” when this was time-barred from the case. The Commission’s arguments 56. The Inter-American Commission requested the Court to reject the preliminary objection presented by the State since it “lacked any grounds,” because: (a) The alleged expiry has no basis in the provisions of the American Convention or in the Statutes or Rules of Procedure of the system’s organs, and (b) The list of the 257 Dismissed Congressional Employees has an “objective source,” which is the judgment of the Constitutional Court of November 24, 1997. It was drawn up applying the provisions of the American Convention and the pro homine principle. The State, in exercise of the right of defense and the adversarial principle, received