not a competent court, they should not have waited until this organ ruled on the events of this case, [but] should have submitted the petition at the time of the disqualification of the ordinary judge in favor of the military justice system, that is on July 22, 1992.” On this basis, the State asked the Court to declare that the preliminary objection was justified and that “the application presented by the Commission was inadmissible.” 17. The Commission explained “that, during the admissibility procedure, the State had gradually changed its position on this point as the domestic proceedings advanced.” In this regard, it indicated that, on a first and only occasion, the State had referred “to the petition being timebarred in relation to the final decision issued in the proceeding before the military jurisdiction” and, subsequently, had asserted repeatedly “that it was the proceeding in the ordinary jurisdiction that was the appropriate remedy for the matter being examined and [had] argued the failure to exhaust domestic remedies, because the said proceeding had not yet concluded.” Thus, the Commission indicated that the State’s position before the Court was inconsistent with the position it had held during the admissibility stage, once it became aware of the existence of a criminal proceeding in the ordinary jurisdiction. Accordingly, the Commission argued that “it is not admissible, under the estoppel principle, for the State to return to an argument that the State itself had changed at the admissibility stage before the Commission.” In addition, the Commission considered that “the allegation of non-compliance with the six-month period logically excluded the allegation of failure to exhaust domestic remedies.” Consequently, “[i]f the State considers that domestic remedies have not been exhausted, the six-month period is evidently inapplicable, because, as this is regulated in the Convention, it is dependent on the date of notification of the decision that exhausts the domestic remedies.” Hence, the Commission observed that the decision based on which the State argued that the petition was time-barred corresponded to a decision to archive the case issued on February 7, 1996, by the Third Permanent Military Court of the Army’s Second Judicial District, notified on September 25, 1996. On this point, the Commission argued that, in its Admissibility Report No. 76/10, it had referred to the consistent criterion of the organs of the interAmerican system that “the investigations and proceedings under the military system of justice are neither appropriate nor effective remedies to respond to human rights violations and, therefore, such investigations and proceedings are not taken into account to analyze the requirement of exhaustion of domestic remedies and, consequently, that of the six-month period.” Therefore, in the Admissibility Report, it had indicated “that the remedy that was theoretically appropriate – specifically, the criminal proceeding in the ordinary jurisdiction – continued to be processed and that, in this case, the exception of unwarranted delay established in Article 46(2) of the Convention was applicable.” Based on the foregoing, the Commission considered that the preliminary objection filed by the State was inadmissible. 18. The representatives argued that, during the processing of the matter before the Commission and the Court, “the State [had] made two assertions that contradicted each other,” and this adversely affected the procedural position of the opposing party owing to the principle of estoppel. In this regard, they indicated that, during the processing of the case before the Commission, the State had argued initially that the domestic remedies had been exhausted and that the petition based on the enforced disappearance of Jeremías Osorio Rivera had been lodged after the sixmonth period established by Article 46(1)(b) of the American Convention. Subsequently, still before the Commission, the State had maintained that domestic remedies had not been exhausted. Finally, before the Court, the State had returned to its initial argument that, in the instant case, the petition lodged before the Commission was time-barred. Regarding the proceeding in the military jurisdiction, which, according to the State, was the domestic remedy it had considered exhausted when calculating the six-month period, the representatives recalled that, previously, both the Commission and the Court had ruled that “the military jurisdiction does not constitute an adequate remedy to investigate, prosecute and punish human rights violations presumably committed by members of the armed forces, as occurred in this case.” Therefore, for the purposes of the 9