10 request by the Commission for Theodore Macdonald Jr. to appear as an expert witness, because it was time-barred, and admitted him as a witness, as originally offered. The President also summoned witnesses Jaime Castillo Felipe, Charly Webster Mclean Cornelio, Wilfredo Mclean Salvador, Brooklyn Rivera Bryan, Humberto Thompson Sang, Guillermo Castilleja and Galio Claudio Enrique Gurdián Gurdián, and expert witnesses Lottie Marie Cunningham de Aguirre, Charles Rice Hale, Roque de Jesús Roldán Ortega and Rodolfo Stavenhagen Gruenbaum, all of them offered by the Commission in its application, to render testimony at the public hearing on the merits of the case, scheduled to be held at the seat of the Court on November 16, 2000. 56. On October 5, 2000, the Commission submitted a brief in which it requested the good offices of the Court for the public hearing on the merits to be held at the seat of the Supreme Court of Justice of Costa Rica, given the large number of people who had shown an interest in attending that hearing. 57. On October 20, 2000, the President issued an Order in which he informed the Commission and the State that the public hearing convened by the September 14, 2000 Order would be held at the seat of the Supreme Electoral Board of Costa Rica, starting at 16:00 hours on November 16, 2000, to hear the testimony and reports, respectively, of the witnesses and expert witnesses previously summoned. 58. On October 26, 2000, the State sent a brief requesting the Court to reject the request by the Commission to hold the public hearing on the merits at the seat of the Supreme Court of Justice of Costa Rica, because the reasons given were “purely speculative” and were not “sufficient juridical reason to justify the transfer of said hearings”. 59. On October 27, 2000, the Commission sent a brief with a list of 19 members of the Awas Tingni Community who would attend the public hearing as observers. 60. On that same day, the President issued an Order in which he decided that, given the request by the State for the public hearing on the merits be held at the seat of the Court and that the number of members of the Mayagna Community who would attend the hearing, according to the Commission, was much smaller than had originally been envisioned, the reason given for holding the public hearing outside the seat of the Court did not exist, and he therefore decided that the hearing would be held at the seat of the Court, on the same day and at the same time specified in his October 20, 2000 Order (supra para. 57). 61. In November, 2000, Robert A. Williams Jr., on behalf of the organization National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), submitted a brief, in English, acting as amicus curiae. 62. On November 16, 17, and 18, 2000, at the public hearing on the merits of the case, the Court heard the testimony of the witnesses and expert witnesses offered by the Commission and that of the witness summoned by the Court in accordance with article 44(1) of the Rules of Procedure. The Court also heard the final oral pleadings of the parties. There appeared before the Court: For the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights: