4 12. On August 21, 1995, the Secretariat of the Court (hereinafter "the Secretariat") dispatched to the State the application and the attachment submitted to the Court on August 3, 1995. The State received them on August 22, 1995. 13. The Commission named Claudio Grossman and John Donaldson as its Delegates, and Edith Márquez-Rodríguez, David J. Padilla and Domingo E. Acevedo as its Attorneys. The Commission also named Janelle M. Diller, Margarita Gutiérrez, Joanne E. Hoeper, Felipe González, Diego Rodríguez, Arturo González, and A. James Vázquez-Azpiri as assistants to represent the victims. 14. On September 1, 1995, Guatemala named Dennis Alonzo-Mazariegos as its Agent, and Vicente Arranz-Sanz as its Alternate Agent. On September 22, 1995, it designated Alfonso Novales-Aguirre as Judge ad hoc. 15. On September 16, 1995, the State filed the following preliminary objections: incompetence of the Inter-American Court to try the case, inasmuch as the acceptance of the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court applied exclusively to cases that occurred after the date on which the declaration was deposited with the Secretariat of the Organization of American States; the Court’s lack of competence over the subject matter of the application, and the Commission's violation of the American Convention in view of the norm regarding interpretation contained in Article 29(d). 16. In its brief of September 16, 1995, the State also indicated that the criminal proceeding in progress in Guatemala to clarify the facts of this case "began on June 26, 1985, at the Justice of the Peace of the Municipality of San Juan Ixcoy, on the basis of the report it had received from the National Police when it discovered that Mr. Nicholas Chapman Blake and Mr. Griffith Davis were lost", and that on July 10, 1985, the court file was referred to the Chiantla Justice of the Peace, which in turn referred it to the Second Court of Preliminary Criminal Investigation of the Department of Huehuetenango, where it was filed as case No. 542-85. The State also indicated that "neither Report 5/95 nor the application claimed that... Mr. Blake's family had taken any steps before the aforementioned Tribunal, nor had they even appeared to testify in the case before it." Lastly, it said that, at the Department of the Public Prosecutor behest, the judge in the case issued an order for the arrest of Mario Cano, on August 22, 1995; Daniel Velásquez; Hipólito Ramos-García, alias "Polo"; Vicente Cifuentes, alias "Chente"; Candelario López-Herrera; Emeterio López, alias "Tello"; and Ezequiel Alvarado, "that being the current status of the criminal proceeding." 17. On November 9, 1995, Guatemala submitted its answer to the application, requesting that it be answered in the negative, that the Court declare the application inadmissible and reject the Commission's claims. It also argued that the Commission's intention was "to transform a finite common criminal act" into a human rights case. It further maintained that the events of March 28, 1985, constituted a "[c]ommon, unlawful criminal act of a finite nature," such as aggravated homicide or assassination, and "not a case of a violation of human rights, such as the right to personal liberty and the right to life, which are protected by the Convention, nor a contravention of the Convention with regard to the General Obligation of the States Parties to respect the human rights recognized therein." 18. By Order of December 9, 1995, the President of the Court (hereinafter "the President") granted a period of one calendar month for Guatemala to specify and submit the evidence it considered pertinent to the case, inasmuch as in the