34 g) the fact that the State did not inform Mr. Acosta Calderón of his right to contact the Colombian Consulate to receive assistance, once he was arrested, and thus deprive him of his rights enshrined in Article 36(1)(b) of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, constitutes a violation of Article 8 of the American Convention, in what refers to the right of the alleged victim to a due process in criminal actions. ARGUMENTS OF THE REPRESENTATIVES 102. Regarding Article 8 of the American Convention, the representatives adopted the arguments presented by the Commission as their own and also indicated that: a) the five year delay in the processing of the case against Mr. Acosta Calderón is unreasonable and therefore violates the Convention. The criminal process, pursuant to that stated in the Code of Criminal Procedures of 1983 should not exceed 100 days, however, in Mr. Acosta Calderón’s case it lasted more than five years without the existence of reasons that could justify this delay; b) “the right to be heard by a judge implies that the judicial authority deal with and issue a ruling regarding the requests made by the procedural part.” This ruling must indicate the reasons why the request has been considered in order or out of order. Mr. Acosta Calderón presented, on different occasions, several briefs requesting, among other things, the reversal of the order of preventive detention issued against him. However, neither the Judge of Lake Agrio nor the Superior Court of Quito issued a ruling in this sense, thus violating the right to be heard by a judge, acknowledged in Article 8(1) of the Convention. c) the State violated Mr. Acosta Calderón’s right to the presumption of innocence. According to the national legislation, “a verification conducted by law” of the existence of the infraction was necessary. The domestic legislation required that said verification be done through the obligatory report of the National Department for the Control of Narcotics. The mentioned report, if necessary, would prove the existence of any narcotic and would include a sample of the drug that was destroyed; d) Mr. Acosta Calderón “was officially summoned with the court order to investigate the alleged crime on October 18, 1991, that is[,] almost two years after his arrest. Therefore, the State did not fulfill its obligation to give ‘prior notification in detail to the accused of the charges against him’, pursuant to Art[icle] 8(2)(b) of the Convention. Likewise, there is no procedural evidence that Mr. Acosta Calderon or his defense counsel were notified with the order to the full trial, which was issued by the First Chamber of the Superior Court of Quito;” e) the State did not comply with its obligation to provide Mr. Acosta Calderon with a defense counsel during the process of request of the opinion of the First Chamber of the Superior Court of Quito. In the same manner, Mr. Acosta Calderón did not have a defense counsel present with him during the initial interrogation before the police, nor was one appointed to him. The evidence used to convict Mr. Acosta Calderon was performed without a real and