10. Victims’ Legal Assistance Fund. In an order issued by the President of the Inter-American Court on December 19, 2018, the request made by the presumed victim, through his representatives, to access the Court’s Legal Assistance Fund was declared admissible. 11. Public hearing. In an order of December 19, 2018,4 the President called the State, the representatives and the Inter-American Commission to a public hearing to receive their final oral arguments and observations on the preliminary objections and eventual merits, reparations and costs, as well as to receive the statement of the presumed victim and the opinion of an expert witness, both proposed by the representatives. The public hearing took place on February 1, 2019, during the Court’s 129th regular session held at its seat.5 12. Final written arguments and observations. On March 1, 2019, the State forwarded its final written arguments and the Commission presented its final written observations. The representatives presented their final written arguments belatedly on March 2, 2019;6 therefore, they will not be admitted. 13. Deliberation of the case. The Court began the deliberation of this judgment on November 25, 2019. III JURISDICTION 14. The Court has jurisdiction to hear this case pursuant to Article 62(3) of the Convention because Argentina has been a State Party to the American Convention since September 5, 1984, and accepted the contentious jurisdiction of the Court on the same date. IV PRELIMINARY OBJECTIONS A. Non-existence of certain facts alleged in the Commission’s Merits Report and in the brief with pleadings, motions and evidence a.1 Arguments of the parties and the Commission 15. First, the State argued that the facts relating to the prolonged preventive detention and to the judicial guarantees during the trial had become abstract and, thus, no longer existed because Mr. Jenkins had been acquitted in December 1997. Second, it indicated that the Supreme Court of Justice of the Argentine Nation had established the unconstitutionality of article 10 of Law No. 24,390 on June 15, 2010; consequently, the complaint regarding the conventionality of article 10 of that law no longer subsisted. Cf. Case of Jenkins v. Argentina. Call to a hearing. Order of the President of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of December 19, 2018. Available at: http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/asuntos/jenkins_19_12_18.pdf 4 5 There appeared at this hearing: a) For the Inter-American Commission: Commissioner Francisco Eguiguren Praeli and legal adviser Silvia Serrano Guzmán; b) For the representatives of the presumed victim: Octavio Tito Sufán Farías and Nilda López Britez; c) For the State of Argentina: Alberto Javier Salgado, Director of International Human Rights Disputes, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship; Siro de Martini, Adviser to the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, and Alfredo Vitolo, Adviser to the Secretariat of Human Rights and Cultural Pluralism. As indicated by the President of the Court during the public hearing of this case held on February 1, 2019, the nonextendible time limit for the parties and the Commission to present their final written arguments and observations expired on March 1, 2019. The representatives’ brief was forwarded on March 2, 2019, at 6.51 a.m. Costa Rican time. 6 6