National Ministry of Defense,” while requesting that an official letter be dispatched to the Property Registry. 28. The State claims that under domestic law, in this type of proceedings the plaintiff is responsible for writing up and serving notice of court-ordered official communications. It also points to several periods of procedural inactivity in the case, which can be attributed to the delay of the petitioner’s attorney in writing up and serving notice of the letters. It then identifies (i) the judge’s order of May 29, 1991 to issue a letter to the Army General Staff to report whether any investigation was opened regarding the alleged facts; while the letter was issued by the petitioner’s attorney in September 1991; (ii) order of the judge dated March 18, 1992 to issue a letter to the Property Registry; while the letter was issued by the petitioner’s attorney in June 1992; (iii) order of the judge from September 9, 1992 to issue a letter to the Provincial Office of Land Registry; and it was done in February 1993; and (iv) the judge’s order to issue a new letter to the Property Registry on November 16, 1993; while the letter was prepared in March 1994 and picked-up from the court the following month. 29. The State claims that in addition to the delays of the petitioner’s attorney in writing up and serving the aforementioned letters, there were other delays caused by a lack of procedural momentum of the plaintiff. It further contends that after April 1994, no additional steps were taken in the case file until February 1996, at which point the petitioner’s attorney “reappears in the proceedings”, filing a motion to discontinue the requests of information filed to the Property Registry, claiming that they had been unsuccessful without offering any proof to support such allegation. 30. The State alleges that “as of February 1996, the case proceedings took on a different pace,” but that even so there were further delays which can be attributed to the plaintiff, among which the State points out: (i) notification of the suit to the Ministry of Defense was ordered on February 27, 1996 and carried out by the attorney almost three months later; (ii) the settlement hearing was scheduled for April 7, 1997, but was postponed at the request of the petitioner, who had claimed he was not served notice on time, which resulted in a new hearing date being set for one month later; (iii) on October 24, 1997, the court requested the parties to present the evidence, which the plaintiff did not respond to until three weeks later; and (iv) on December 18, 1997, the judge ruled on the admissibility of the requested evidence, but the plaintiff did not request the appointment of expert witnesses in the case until February 12, 1998. The State notes that the trial court judgment was rendered on September 7, 2000. 31. The State claims that, had the delays attributable to the plaintiff not taken place, the case would have taken a little more than three years for the trial court to hand down its judgment, which does not constitute a violation of the right to be heard within a reasonable time as established in Article 8.1 of the American Convention. Based on these arguments, it contends that there is no record of a single delay that can be attributed to the State in the record of the case proceedings, and that contrary to the arguments of the petitioner, at no time did it deny ownership of the land where the accident occurred. In fact, the State asserts that in the Ministry of Defense’s response to the complaint filed by the petitioner in the domestic civil damages proceedings, it made no reference as to the ownership of the land. In conclusion, the State requests the IACHR to reject the arguments on the merits presented by the petitioner with regard to the rights set forth in Articles 8 and 25 of the American Convention. 32. With respect to the Commission’s decision to declare the right to judicial protection set forth in Article 25(2)(c) admissible, the State first contends that the petitioner has not introduced any evidence supporting its arguments with respect to payment in bonds and the redemption thereof at a lower value. Additionally, it asserts that just as the petitioner alleges, it was his decision to redeem the bonds before the maturity date established by law and below the