- 15 the corresponding proceedings, had been suspended on the orders of the Court at the request of the Commission itself. III. CONSIDERATIONS ON THE JUDGMENT The Judgment refers to two of the arguments made by the State with regard to its preliminary objection. One consists in the fact that, when the initial petition was lodged, the domestic remedies had not been exhausted, and the other to the fact that, when deciding on admissibility, the Commission did not take into account that other applications for habeas corpus filed by the representative were being processed.38 This opinion is only concerned with the first argument, regarding which the Judgment gives four reasons to reject the preliminary objection filed by the State based on the petitioner’s failure to comply with the obligation to exhaust the domestic remedies before lodging the petition. The first reason is stated as follows: “[a]s the State mentioned, the decisions that, according to the Commission, exhausted the domestic remedies were adopted after the initial petition had been lodged. However, the Court notes that, by requiring that “admission by the Commission of a petition or communication […] shall be subject to” the said exhaustion (underlining added), Article 46 of the American Convention, should be interpreted in the sense that exhaustion of the remedies is required when deciding on the admissibility of the petition and not when this is lodged.”39 Thus, the Judgment is aligned with the Court’s invariable position that the requirement of prior exhaustion of domestic remedies must be met at the time the Commission takes a decision on the admissibility of the petition and not when the latter is lodged; a position that, as indicated in Part I of this document – and especially in its sections B, C and D – this opinion does not share, above all, because it runs counter to the express provisions of Article 46(1)(a): by disregarding the qualifying term of “lodged” attributed to the petition in order to indicate that it is with regard to the petition as lodged that the admissibility or inadmissibility should be declared; by not weighing the State’s observations and the fact that these could only refer to the petition as lodged, which established the adversarial proceedings on the matter, and regarding which the Commission should take a decision and, lastly, by not considering that, in order to decide on admissibility, the Commission should “verify,” – that is, confirm – that the requirement of prior exhaustion of domestic remedies has been met, which, undoubtedly and consequently, should have occurred before that moment. It should also be noted that the Judgment appears to contain a contradiction because, when setting out the Court’s second reason for rejecting the preliminary objection in question, it affirms that: “[o]nce the petition has been forwarded to the State, the admissibility stage starts and, consequently, the adversarial proceedings on whether the petition meets the admissibility requirements, including the requirement of exhaustion of domestic remedies,” and that “it is when examining admissibility that the Commission decides whether or not the petition complies with this requirement, or whether any of the exceptions established in the Convention are applicable. 40 This appears to suggest that the Judgment follows the thesis set out in this opinion; namely, that it is on the adversarial 38 Cf. para. 23 of the Judgment. 39 Para. 25 of the Judgment. 40 Para. 26 of the Judgment.