jurisdiction of the Commission and of the Inter-American Court of
Human Rights.
3.
After examining the positions of the parties, the Commission has
concluded that it is competent to decide the complaint presented by the
petitioners and that the case is admissible, in light of Article 46 of the
American Convention. Consequently, the Commission has decided to
notify its decision to the parties and to publish this admissibility report
and include it in its Annual Report.
II.
PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE COMMISSION
4.
On September 3, 2003 the Commission received a complaint
presented by the lawyer Nelson Caucoto and on September 22 of that
year it acknowledged receipt of the complaint. On May 12, 2004 the
Commission transmitted the complaint to the government, with a letter
dated May 4, requesting that it present its response within two months.
On February 18, 2005 the Government of Chile responded to the
petition. The State's response was presented seven months after the
time limit, and the State did not request an extension nor offer any
explanation for the delay in its response. 3 On February 22, 2005 the
Commission transmitted the State's response to the petitioner. On April
26, 2005 the Commission received the petitioners’ response to the
State's observations, which it transmitted to the State on August 11,
2005 without requesting any observations on that response because it
merely reiterated the arguments contained in the petition. There has
been no further correspondence with the parties since that date.
III.
A.
POSITIONS OF THE PARTIES
Position of the petitioners
5.
The petition relates that on September 17, 1973 Mr. Jorge Ovidio
Osorio Zamora, a militant socialist and professor at the University of
Chile, was arrested at his workplace by personnel of the Chilean
3 Article 30(3) of the Commission's Rules of Procedure provides: “The State
shall submit its response within two months counted from the date the request
is transmitted. The Executive Secretariat shall evaluate requests for extensions
of this period that are duly founded. However, it shall not grant extensions
that exceed three months from the date of the first request for information
sent to the State.” The Commission is not supposed to take account of an
answer received late from the State but in this case, because of the
importance of the matter, it will take it into consideration
2
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