11 m) that the State knew that, by not complying with the Commission’s recommendations to provide reparations and compensation within a period of three months, it ran the risk of the Commission referring the case to the Court or preparing a report in accordance with Article 51 of the Convention; n) that the Court’s criterion with regard to alleged defects in form is that, with regard to the international protection of human rights, formalities before international organizations do not play the same role as before local courts; o) that, according to the theory of implicit powers, monitoring bodies may use those powers that are inherent in them in the light of their purpose, although such powers are not expressly mentioned in their basic texts; and p) done. that considerations of a formal nature may not prejudice justice being 31. The fourth objection filed by the State refers to the expiry of the application filed before the Court by the Commission. 32. In order to establish this objection, Panama presented the legal and factual arguments that are summarized below: a) that the Commission never approved the report referring the case to the Court mentioned in Article 51.1 of the Convention, in accordance with the procedure and in the form stipulated in both the Convention and the corresponding Regulations. To the contrary, it carried out “a series of telephone calls to five members of the Commission [recorded] in an unofficial and informal document that THE COMMISSION (has called] ‘MINUTES OF TELEPHONE CONFERENCE...’”; b) that the application against Panama suffers from a formal legal defect that “annuls” the referral of case 11,325 to the Court because the three-month period has expired without the corresponding report having been drawn up and presented as the Convention establishes. Accordingly, the Commission’s right to refer the case to the Court has expired; c) that the Commission referred the case to the Court on the basis of Report No. 37/97 of October 16, 1997, which never established that, should the State fail to comply with the recommendations, the case could be referred to the Court; d) that the Court cannot allow the Commission to use the time limits arbitrarily, particularly if these are stipulated in the Convention; and e) that from the point of view of time and reasonableness, the period of three months given to the Commission to refer case 11,325 to the Court, in application of the provisions of Article 51.1 of the Convention and Article 43 of the Commission’s Regulations, expired after January 16, 1998. 33. The Commission argued: