7 following instructions by the President, informed the State that it had already forwarded to the State, on July 26, 2002, the curricula vitae of the expert witnesses proposed by the Commission and by the representatives of the next of kin of the victim. 35. On November 30, 2002 the President issued an Order in which he admitted the testimony and expert opinions offered by the Commission and by the representatives of the next of kin of the victim. He also summoned the parties to a public hearing to be held at the seat of the Inter-American Court, beginning on February 18, 2003, to hear their final oral pleadings on preliminary objections, the merits, and possible reparations, as well as the testimony of Monsignor Julio Cabrera Ovalle, Virgilio Rodríguez Santana, Rember Larios Tobar, Henry Monroy Andrino, Lucrecia Hernández Mack, Helen Mack Chang, Gabriela Vásquez Smerelli, and Nadezhada Vásquez Cucho and the expert opinion of Mónica Pinto proposed both by the Commission and by said representatives. He also decided to hear the expert opinion of Katharine Doyle, Alicia Neuburger, Iduvina Hernández, and Javier Llobet Rodríguez, offered only by the representatives of the next of kin of the victim. Finally, he ordered that the testimony of Clara Arenas Bianchi and Carmen de LeónEscribano Schlotter and the expert opinion of Bernardo Morales Figueroa be received in writing. 36. On January 17, 2003, the representatives of the next of kin of the victim asked the Court, based on Article 43 of the Rules of Procedure, to summon Henry El Khoury Jacob as an expert witness during the public hearing ordered, in substitution of Javier Llobet Rodríguez, because the latter was appointed as a Judge of the Criminal Court of Appeal in Costa Rica “[and] his participation [in the public hearing] faces insuperable logistic and ethical difficulties.” On January 21, 2003, the Secretariat, following instructions by the President, addressed the Commission and the State for them to submit whatever observations they deemed pertinent regarding the requested substitution of the expert witness, before the 27th of that same month and year. Neither the Commission nor the State objected to said substitution. 37. On January 17, 2003, the representatives of the next of kin of the victim sent the sworn written statements of Carmen de León-Escribano Schlotter and Clara Arenas Bianchi and the expert opinion of Bernardo Morales Figueroa. 38. On January 20, 2003, Helen Mack Chang sent a letter in which she rescinded the previous power of attorney in favor of attorneys Taylor Lee Burke and Jeff Clark and she granted a power of attorney to Alberto Bovino, Robert O. Varenick, Elijah Barret Prettyman Jr., Lyndon Tretter, Shannon Tovan McDaniel, David Kassebaum, Viviana Krsticevic, and Roxana Altholz. She also appointed David Kassebaum as common intervener. 39. On January 30, 2003, the President issued an Order in which he accepted the offer of expert witness Henry El Khoury Jacob as a substitute for Javier Llobet Rodríguez, for him to render an expert opinion during the public hearing to be held beginning on February 18, 2003, in the instant case. 40. On February 14, 2003, the State submitted a brief in which it stated that it had decided to maintain and reiterate before the Court, in the same and literal terms stated before the Commission in March, 2000, “the international acceptance of its Institutional Responsibility in the Myrna Mack Chang case No. 10,636.”