4 9. On January 19, 2009, the State, the Commission and the representatives forwarded their final written arguments. In response to a request from the President, the State and the representatives sent with their briefs, as helpful evidence, the laws in force at the time of the facts, relevant case law of the superior courts, and clarifications on the remedies known as mandado de segurança, embargos de declaração and recurso ordinário constitucional.6 10. On May 15, 2009, the Court received an amicus curiae brief from the Human Rights Clinic of the Law School of the Fundación Getulio Vargas of Rio de Janeiro.7 This brief presented, inter alia, an analysis of the domestic resources used by the alleged victims and their conformity with national and international case law. III PRELIMINARY OBJECTIONS 11. The State filed three preliminary objections in its brief answering the application, and the Court will examine them in the order in which they were raised. A) Failure of the representatives to comply with the time limit established in the Rules of Procedure to submit the brief with pleadings and motions and its attachments 12. The State alleged that the representatives had failed to comply with the time frame established in Articles 26(1) and 36 of the Rules of Procedure.8 According to the State, the representatives “were notified of the application on January 30, 2008, and their brief [with pleadings and motions] was received by the Secretariat of the Court on April 7 [, 2008]; that is one week after the time limit had expired.” In addition, the original brief and its attachments were submitted on May 20, 2008, more than a month after the electronic presentation of the brief. The State indicated that “this defect prejudiced its defense and constituted a violation of the adversarial principle, because it had to make urgent and unexpected changes in its answer in order to refute the new claims of the representatives; 6 In its brief with observations on the helpful evidence, the representatives included allegations regarding the arguments submitted by the State. Brazil asked that these allegations should not be considered by the Court, because the said occasion was not a new procedural opportunity in this regard. Consequently, as indicated by the State, the Court will only consider the part of the representatives’ brief relating to the helpful information requested. Subsequently, on June 30, 2009, the representatives submitted a brief with attachments referring to documents that they said they had not had access to at the time of the facts. On July 1, 2009, on the instructions of the President, the Secretariat clarified to the representatives that the said evidence had already been provided previously to the file of this case with the answer to the application and with the brief with pleadings and motions. In addition, it advised that the arguments in the brief in reference were time-barred, and accordingly would not be admitted by the Court. Cf. Note of the Court’s Secretariat 12,353/114 of July 1, 2009 (Merits file, tome IV, folio 1991). 7 This brief was submitted by Adriana Lacombe Coiro, Cesar Augusto Moacyr R. Beck, Gabriela Reis Paiva Monteiro, Isabela de Araújo Redisch, Maria Luiza Brandão Mortiz Atem, Marília Aguiar Monteiro, Nathalia Andrada de Sarvat, Roberta Santos Lixa and Thiago Silva de Castro Tostes. 8 Articles 26(1) and 36(1) of the Rules of Procedure, applicable to this case, establish: Article 26. Filing of briefs 1. The application, the reply thereto, the written brief containing pleadings, motions, and evidence, as well as any other written material addressed to the Court, may be presented in person, by courier, facsimile, telex, mail or any other method generally used. When any such material is transmitted to the Court by electronic means, the original documents, as well as accompanying evidence, shall be submitted within seven days. Article 36. Brief with pleadings, motions and evidence 1. When the application has been notified to the alleged victim, his next of kin or his duly accredited representatives, they shall have a period of two months, which may not be extended, to present autonomously to the Court their pleadings, motions and evidence.