5 14. On February 27, 1996, the State informed the Court that it had appointed Ambassador Mauricio Pérez-Martínez as its agent and on April 9 of that year it appointed Mr. Manuel Badillo-G. as its alternate agent. On April 3, 1997 Ecuador communicated its appointment of Counsellor Laura Donoso-de León as its agent to replace Ambassador PérezMartínez. 15. On May 29, 1996, the State submitted to the Court certified copies of note No. 861 - CSQ - P- 96 of April 29, 1996, signed by the President of the Superior Court of Justice of Quito and the judicial decision issued on April 16, 1996, by the First Chamber of that Court, in which it [reported] that it [had] ordered the release of Mr. Rafael Iván Suárez-Rosero. 16. On June 7, 1996, Ecuador submitted its reply to the petition in this case, stating that the evidence it would invoke was "essentially instrumental" and asked the Court to [r]efuse the petition and order it to be set aside, especially since it ha[d] been irrefutably prove[n] that Mr. Suárez-Rosero [had been] an accessory to such a serious crime which threatened not only the peace and security of the Ecuadorian State but, more particularly, the health of its population. 17. On June 10, 1996, the Secretariat, in accordance with the Order issued on February 2 of that year, in which it decided that it "[would] admit only such evidence as is indicated in the application and answer", requested the State to specify which "essentially instrumental" evidence it would produce in this case. On July 16, 1996, Ecuador presented thirteen documents as evidence. 18. On June 29, 1996, the Court asked the State and the Inter-American Commission to report whether they were wished to file, pursuant to Article 29(2) of the Rules of Procedure then in force, other written pleadings on the merits of the instant Case, for which it granted them until July 17, 1996. The Commission responded on July 18, 1996, stating that it did not wish to submit other pleadings at that stage in the proceedings. Ecuador did not respond to the Court's request. 19. On September 9, 1996, Ecuador submitted to the Court a brief in which it challenged three of the witnesses proposed by the Commission and asked for three new witnesses to be summoned to the hearings on merits in this case. On September 11, 1996, the Court issued an Order in which it decided to "[h]ear the statements of Mr. Rafael Suárez-Rosero, Ms. Margarita Ramadán de Suárez, and Mr. Carlos Ramadán, the value of which [would] be assessed in the final judgment." That same day, the President informed the State that the Court had deemed the proposal of oral evidence at this stage of the case to be time-barred and asked it to clarify whether any of the reasons that would justify the late presentation of evidence would be applicable to the proposal made. 20. On October 4, 1996, the State submitted a brief to the Court, in which it repeated its request that the evidence proposed be allowed, and enclosed a certified copy of the judgment issued on that date by the President of the Superior Court of Justice of Quito, in which he declared that Mr. Suárez-Rosero had been an accessory to the crime of illicit traffic in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances and sentenced him to two years in prison and a fine of two thousand times the normal minimum living wage. On February 5, 1997, the