16 61. The Court has already established clear criteria to be followed when filing the objection of failure to exhaust domestic remedies. Based on the generally recognized principles of international law, to which the rule of exhaustion of domestic remedies refers, it is clear: first, that the defendant State can waive its right to invoke this rule expressly or tacitly. Second, the correct moment for introducing the objection of failure to exhaust domestic remedies is during the admissibility stage of the proceeding before the Commission; in other words, before any consideration of the merits of the case; to the contrary, it is assumed that the State has tacitly waived its right to invoke it. Third, the Court has stated that the failure to exhaust domestic remedies is a simple matter of admissibility and that the State which alleges it must indicate the domestic remedies that have to be exhausted, and also prove that those remedies are adequate and effective.10 62. In the instant case, the State made three different assertions in relation to the failure to exhaust domestic remedies. During the admissibility procedure before the Commission it merely indicated that domestic remedies had not been exhausted, because “the Central Electoral Board […] ha[d]not been seized of the case,” and that the representatives ‘‘should […] have recourse to the regular courts” (supra paras. 10 and 21). During the procedure before the Commission on the merits of the case, on January 31, 2002, the State indicated that the alleged victims “had not concluded the proceeding before the Public Prosecutor [...], or had recourse to a court of first instance or to the Central Electoral Board” (supra para. 28). Lastly, during the proceeding before the Court, in its brief answering the application, the State alleged that the hierarchic, amparo and unconstitutionality remedies had not been exhausted; and, during the public hearing, that the remedy of appeal for revision was pending exhaustion before the Civil Status Registrar and before the court of first instance. 63. With regard to the position of the Dominican Republic, in its Admissibility Report No. 28/01 issued on February, 2001, the Commission noted that, on the one hand, “the State had not shown that administrative decisions made by the Public Prosecutor, or by the Central Electoral Board admitted an appropriate remedy to modify them;” and it had not established that there were mechanisms allowing petitioners to appeal directly to these bodies. Consequently, it stated that there were no appropriate remedies in the domestic jurisdiction that could be exhausted in relation to the procedure of late declaration of birth. The Commission also stated that, according to the Dominican laws it was aware of, the alleged victims did not have legal standing to bring an action, since it was the Public Prosecutor who should do so according to Article 41 of Act No. 659, and that, in the instant case, the Public Prosecutor did not empower the judge of first instance to initiate an investigation in order to allow the late declaration of birth of the alleged victims. 64. The Court considers that, according to the above criteria (supra paras. 60 and 61), by not specifying the appropriate and effective remedies that should have been exhausted during the admissibility procedure before the Inter-American Commission, the State implicitly waived its right to a means of defense that the American Convention establishes in its favor and tacitly admitted the inexistence of such 10 Cf. Case of the Moiwana community, supra note 8, para. 49; the Case of Serrano Cruz Sisters. Preliminary objections, supra note 7, para. 135, and Case of Tibi, supra note 7, para. 49.