dictatorship.10 It is argued that the Chilean judicial system has systematically applied such statutory limitations to judicial actions for reparations for damages involving human rights. 42. The petitioners also assert that Decree Law No. 2191 bans investigations of past violations necessary to determine individual responsibility in the present case. The Chilean amnesty only applies to criminal responsibilities, but without identification of the perpetrator, it is impossible to establish civil liability in Chilean courts. Civil claims must be lodged against a specific person in order to establish that person’s responsibility for the alleged acts and to determine the payment of compensation. Consequently, the petitioners argue, the right to compensation for damages is not only illusory but also juridically impossible. In fact, not a single civil suit brought by torture survivors for damages has succeeded. 43 The State did not invoke the failure to exhaust domestic remedies. Consequently, the Commission considers that the Chilean State did not invoke this objection in the initial stages of the proceedings. 44. The Inter-American Court has repeatedly held that in order to be timely, the objection that domestic remedies have not been exhausted should be raised during the first stages of the proceeding; otherwise, it will be presumed that the respondent State tacitly waived this defense. 45. The Commission therefore considers that the Chilean State waived the objection of failure to exhaust domestic remedies, because it did not present this objection at the first procedural opportunity, i.e. in its response to the petition that initiated the proceedings. 2. Timeliness of the petition 46.Article 46(1)(b) of the Convention provides that a petition must be lodged within a period of six months from the date on which the petitioners are notified of the final judgment exhausting domestic remedies. 47. In the case at hand, the Commission has established that the State has tacitly waived its right to invoke the exception to the failure to exhaust domestic remedies, for which reason Article 46(1)(b) of the Convention does not apply. Nevertheless the requirements for exhaustion of domestic remedies and for presentation of the petition within six months of the judgment exhausting those remedies are independent. The Commission must, therefore, determine whether the petition was presented within a reasonable time. 48. The situation of Mr. Garcia is distinct from that of Chileans who were tortured but were not expelled from Chile. Under the second assumption, it would be reasonable to expect that the presumed victim would have exhausted domestic remedies within six months after the date of notification. However, in the present case, the facts show that Mr. Garcia was so severely tortured that he was physically and psychologically incapacitated for work, he was unable to learn English despite living in Great Britain for nearly 30 years, and his persistent efforts to secure compensation reveal his financial situation. The Commission considers that it is not reasonable to require a person under such circumstances to travel from United Kingdom to Chile and initiate a legal action for reparations, when no person in the same situation as Mr. Garcia has been compensated as the result of a judicial decision. Finally, the Chilean State began, in 2004, to address the situation of persons who were tortured in the prisons and detention centers of Chile in 10 See Report No. 36/96, Case 10.843 (Chile), October 15, 1996, paras. 65-66: “The petitioners allege furthermore that the Amnesty Decree-Law prevented the families of the victims from seeking reparations in the civil courts. (…) In Chile, the ability to bring civil action is not necessarily linked to the results of the criminal proceedings. Civil charges, however, must be brought against a specified person in order to establish the responsibility for the alleged deeds and to determine the payment of compensation. The failure of the State to conduct an investigation made it virtually impossible to establish any such responsibility before the civil courts. Notwithstanding the fact that the Supreme Court stressed that civil and criminal proceedings are independent, the manner in which the amnesty was applied by the courts clearly affected the right to seek reparations in the civil courts, by making it impossible to individualize or identify those responsible.” 9