13. The public hearing took place on April 25, 2012, during the forty-fifth special session of the Court, held in Guayaquil, Ecuador.11 14. The Court received two amici curiae briefs from: (1) Pedro E. Díaz Romero, 12 and (2) the Open Society Justice Initiative.13 15. On June 8, 2012, the representatives and the State forwarded their final written arguments, and the Inter-American Commission presented its final written observations. At that time, the State presented the requested report from the Attorney General’s Office (supra para. 11), as well as two documents on mental health care in Guatemala, which had not been requested by the Court. Also, the representatives submitted a copy of another death certificate. On June 29, 2012, the representatives presented their observations on the report on the domestic criminal investigation submitted by the State. On July 3. 2012, the Commission presented its observations on the said report, as well as on the documentation on mental health care in Guatemala, and indicated that it had no observations to make on the documentation presented by the representatives. The State indicated that it did not have any observations on the documentation furnished by the representatives. 16. On June 15, 2012, the Court required the State to present certain useful information.14 On June 29, 2012, the State presented the required information, and on July 12 and 13, 2012, the representatives and the Inter-American Commission presented their observations in this regard. III PARTIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF INTERNATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY 17. The State partially acknowledged its international responsibility in this case, as follows: a) Regarding the competence of the Court in this case, the State indicated that “the Court must determine whether it is able to examine the facts on which the violations of the [Convention] alleged by the representatives in this case are founded, as regards the arbitrary detention and subsequent extrajudicial execution of Rudy Gustavo Figueroa Muñoz and the illegal detention, torture and rape of the minor, Wendy Santizo Méndez.” 11 At the hearing, there appeared: (a) for the Inter-American Commission: Jesús Orozco Henríquez, President; Elizabeth Abi-Mershed, Deputy Executive Secretary; Isabel Madariaga, Karla Quintana, and Silvia Serrano, specialists of the Secretariat, and Michael Camilleri, expert from the Special Rapporteurship on Freedom of Expression; (b) for the representatives: Helen Mack, Mónica Leonardo and Silvia Barreno of the Myrna Mack Foundation; Roxanna Altholz of the Human Rights Clinic of the University of California and Carmen Atkins, legal adviser, and (c) for the State: Antonio Arenales Forno, Secretary for Peace (SEPAZ); Jorge Humberto Herrera Castillo, President of the National Compensation Program; María Elena de Jesús Rodríguez López, State Agent, and Haydée Calderón, of the Presidential Commission for the Coordination of Human Rights Policies (COPREDEH). 12 The brief was presented by Pedro E. Díaz Romero on May 9, 2012. 13 The brief was filed on May 10, 2012, signed by Rupert Skilbeck, on behalf of the Open Society Justice Initiative. It indicated that the Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos (APRODEH) and the Mexican Association for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights A.C. co-authored the amicus; however the brief was not signed by the representatives of these organizations. 14 Specifically, the State was asked to respond to certain questions on how the Law on Access to Public Information functioned and on the Public Information Unit of the Ministry of Defense. -8-