Gómez Pérez when providing their opinions during the public hearing, this Court admits them to the extent that they relate to the purpose established for the expert opinion (supra para. 12). 120. Expert opinion provided by Rosa del Rosario Lara. Regarding expert witness Rosa del Rosario Lara, the Dominican Republic affirmed that, when answering one of the State’s questions, she had indicated that she “worked as an ‘expert in psychology [for …] MUDHA,’” which the State had “been unaware of prior to the notification of the expert opinion by affidavit.” It therefore “proceed[ed] to recuse her pursuant to Article 48(1)(c) of the Rules of Procedure.” Regarding the “recusal” of expert witness Rosa del Rosario Lara, this is not admissible as such, because it was time-barred under the provisions of Article 48(2) of the Rules of Procedure. Despite this, in this case, the Court will take the State’s observations into account when assessing the expert opinion. 84 121. Objection to documentary evidence provided by the presumed victims contained in documents prepared by the Human Rights Clinic at Columbia University School of Law. The State argued that the said documents contained “shortcomings that jeopardize the authenticity of the document,” and contested them based on one or several of the following alleged shortcomings, as applicable: (a) absence of notarization; (b) lack of stamps or seals; (c) absence of the signature of the deponents, or of fingerprints in the case of those unable to write; (d) the signature “de orden (D/o)” of “the person who presumably appears as a witness”; (e) the lack of witnesses; (f) elaboration in English; (g) “computer transcription [of the supposed statement, while] the attached power of attorney that was granted and the record of the said statements are [handwritten]; (h) failure of the deponents to initial all the pages of the documents; (i) alleged illegibility of “supposed” handwritten statements; (j) failure to number various pages; (k) presence of deletions and crossings-out, and (l) the signature of the deponent is different from that on other statements by the same person. The State also argued that the testimony of Carmen Méndez (a document that was forwarded by the Commission as annex 59 to the Merits report) “lacks probative value” because “it is not notarized; it is not signed by the deponent and it does not bear her fingerprint […]; it does not bear a single stamp, [and it] has not been witnessed.” The State also alleged that the “authenticity” of four “documents supposedly containing sworn statements” is “jeopardized” because “they lack the signature, stamp and protocol number of the presumed notary public.” These documents are annexed to the State’s report No. 30 on the provisional measures of August 25, 2000, which was also presented as annex 38 to the Merits report. 122. In this regard, the representatives stated that “[the] Court should take into account the specific circumstances of the [case],” because “following the [alleged] expulsions” the presumed victims “were placed in […] circumstances of extreme poverty, so that they live in very remote places, some […] in Haiti, near the border with the Dominican Republic, and others in places that are difficult to access in the Dominican capital, which made it problematic to collect the statements of the [presumed] victims and to notarize them.” The representatives added that they had made every effort to verify the truth of these documents, and had attached a transcript of the handwritten statements to them. In addition, it indicated that “most of the [presumed] victims are illiterate, so that it is understandable that their signature would be different in the different documents.” regime relating to the functioning of the Civil Registry Office” and related aspects, and did not include facts of the case, or those directly related to the presumed victims. Therefore, the said document will be assessed exclusively as regard the purpose required of the opinion. 84 The Court places on record that the Dominican Republic made observations on the affidavit made by Gabriela Rodríguez Pizarro, and the expert opinion of Cristóbal Rodríguez Gómez, without objecting to them. 36