A. Request of control of legality on the procedure followed by the Commission A.1 Arguments of the parties and of the Commission 15. The State argued that the Merits Report claims that 20 alleged victims in this case had exhausted domestic remedies and that there is uncertainty regarding 172 persons. It, thus, requested a control of legality on the Commission’s incorporation of those alleged victims because it violated the State’s right of defense. It based its request on three arguments. First, the improper application of the Commission’s Resolution 1/16 with regard to deferring the question of admissibility until the debate and decision on the merits.10 It argued that the Commission, by deciding the admissibility together with the merits, did not rule on the exhaustion of domestic remedies even though an analysis of the admissibility of the exceptions to the rules on exhaustion depends on a standard of appreciation that differs than that in determining violations of the Convention. 16. Secondly, the State pointed out that there was no indication as to which of the 172 former congressional employees recurred to the domestic jurisdiction to validate their claims. The State maintained that although Decree-Law 25640 established that a writ of amparo was not appropriate to contest the dismissals directly or indirectly, it did not bar other judicial means to impugn them and that, in its Merits Report, the Commission recognized that some of the alleged victims sought administrative and judicial remedies. The State also claimed that the Commission did not provide anything ”that would allow it to request information that could enable an analysis of the exhaustion.” According to the State, this lack of information limited its right of defense since it was not then able to dispute the facts of the case of 172 persons. 17. Finally, the State claimed that there is a contradiction in the Commission’s pleadings in that it stated that the exhaustion of domestic remedies in this case had not been successful and, at the same time, it recognized that, in comparable cases, the victims exhausted remedies of the domestic jurisdiction.11 18. The Commission stated that the authority to exercise “control of legality” of its actions should be exercised restrictively and exceptionally. Otherwise, its autonomy and independence would be placed at risk. It emphasized that such a control is appropriate when it is demonstrated that there is a grave error that prejudices the State’s right of defense, which would justify a case being declared inadmissible. Thus, it would exceed the Court’s competence to exercise “a control of legality for merely declarative purposes.” The Commission also claimed that it had duly notified both parties of its decision to join the petitions and of its decision to apply Article 36(3) of its Rules in the terms of Resolution 1/16 and that the parties had been able to present their observations on those decisions. Thus, the Commission considered that there was no harm to the State’s right of defense. 19. The representatives argued that a State’s authority to question the Commission’s actions is not unlimited and may only occur in those cases in which it is shown that, in the proceedings before the Commission, there was a grave error that violated the right of Resolution 1/16 of the Commission. https://www.oas.org/es/cidh/decisiones/pdf/Resolucion-1-16-es.pdf 10 Available (in Spanish) at: See: Case of the Dismissed Congressional Employees (Aguado Alfaro et al. v. Peru). Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of November 24, 2006. Series C No. 158 and Case of Canales Huapaya et al. v. Peru. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of June 24, 2015. Series C No. 296. 11 7