B.2. Due procedural guarantees before the Central Bank and the Contentious-Administrative Tribunal 148. The Inter-American Commission and the representatives submitted various arguments on the alleged biased actions of the administrative body and of the Contentious-Administrative Tribunal, which they classified as constituting a “denial of due process.” In this regard, they stated that due process had been violated as a result of: (a) an alleged “presumption of consent” by application of “disqualifying criteria”; (b) an alleged new criterion applied arbitrarily by the Advisory Commission of the Central Bank to the benefit of the individuals related to 22 cases accepted; (c) alleged arbitrary and discriminatory treatment, which the Court will examine under the guarantee of the Central Bank’s decisions being founded, and (d) an alleged lack of probative elements. B.2.a) Alleged “presumption “disqualifying criteria” Arguments of the parties of consent” by application of 149. The Inter-American Commission argued that, although “the central element [of the procedure] was to determine whether or not there had been consent” for the transfer of the funds abroad, the Advisory Commission “adopted its own criteria to interpret [Law 17,613] and decided to presume ‘consent’” based on certain elements, that disqualified most of the petitioners. According to the Inter-American Commission, this action meant “eliminat[ing] the possibility of due process by the Advisory Commission as regards its legislative mandate: to determine whether the depositor, with full knowledge and intent, consented to the transfer of his funds to an autonomous offshore bank.” The Inter-American Commission affirmed that “the Advisory Commission presumed the legislative ‘consent’ required by the depositor in the [Banco de Montevideo] to the transfer of his funds to the [Trade & Commerce Bank], if one of the following elements existed: (1) a signed contract of ‘General Conditions’ to allow the Banco de Montevideo to administer assets; (2) a specific instruction authorizing the Banco de Montevideo to acquire a share in a deposit certificate, or (3) the monthly reception of bank statements clearly establishing that a person had a certificate of deposit in the Trade & Commerce Bank.” According to the Inter-American Commission, the existence of only one of these elements was sufficient to disqualify the depositor from recovering his funds. 150. Furthermore, regarding due process before the Contentious-Administrative Tribunal, the Inter-American Commission indicated that this tribunal “mechanically applied the three per se disqualifying criteria to reject the claims of all the depositors who sought a judicial remedy,” “and failed to conduct an independent and impartial examination of the evidence required under article 31 of Law 17,613.” The InterAmerican Commission argued that “when the Contentious-Administrative Tribunal received a request for the annulment of the rejection of a claim by the Advisory Commission/Central Bank, it: (i) determined whether a disqualifying criterion existed and then confirmed the rejection of the claim on that basis; (ii) did not inquire whether the depositor had sought not to renew his placement in the TCB certificate of deposit […], and (iii) did not provide the depositor with a fair hearing as regards his claim that his funds had been transferred, without his consent, to an offshore entity that bore no relationship to the Banco de Montevideo.” 151. The representatives added that article 31 of Law 17,613 was intended to provide a solution to the depositors of the Banco de Montevideo who had been fraudulently deceived by this bank. According to the representatives “the confirmation that the depositors’ funds had been transferred into TCB certificates of deposit without their consent was an evident presumption, already implicit in the [said] article 31.” They stressed that “consent could not be presumed automatically based on supposedly objective ‘disqualifying criteria,’ without taking into account the situation in which it 62