considered that the above constituted “a clear violation of its procedural guarantees and of equality of arms,” and requested that the Court declare the case inadmissible and that it accept as victims only those presumed victims who were duly identified and individualized. 24. The Commission considered that the State’s claims were inadmissible and observed that its arguments did not constitute a preliminary objection, because they did not contest the Court’s competence, but rather corresponded to the merits stage. The Commission also indicated that, both the list attached to the Merits report, and the list presented subsequently by the petitioners contained elements of individualized identification of the victims and that an explanation of the reasons for this determination had been provided.20 It pointed out that both parties were in agreement that a series of complications and difficulties justified the need to adopt flexible criteria to respond to the particularities of the case so that Article 35(2) of the Rules of Procedure was applicable. 25. The representatives argued that this objection should be rejected, because certainty existed as to those who constituted the universe of victims in the instant case, a delimitation that had been established fully in the Merits report. Regarding the differences between the lists, it clarified that several factors determined the failure to include these presumed victims: (a) the difficult physical access to Cacarica and even to the two humanitarian zones and the neighboring settlements, and (b) the impossibility that some people had to attend the meetings when the censuses of presumed victims were drawn up. They repeated that the State itself had mentioned these difficulties when referring to the reasons why the facts surrounding the forced displacements had not been investigated adequately. The representatives also considered that the violations committed by the State had harmed a cohesive human group, with historical and ethnic roots established before the events of this case. Consequently, they alleged that the presumed victims formed a collective universe in the terms of Article 35 of the Court’s Rules of Procedure. Lastly, they noted that the exclusion of one group of them would have serious effects on the process of reconstructing their individual, family and collective life project, and would have serious consequences for the community structure. “The Commission’s failure to comply with the requirements established in Article 35(1)(c)) for the submission of the case” 26. The State argued that, according to Article 35(1)(c)) of the Rules of Procedure, the Commission must indicate the real and verifiable reasons that led it to submit the case to the Court, and its observations on the State’s response to the recommendations made in the report. It affirmed that it had not failed to comply with the recommendations contained in the report and that the Commission had not taken into account the different actions taken by the State that were being “implemented successively, for short, medium and long-term execution and impact and which, therefore, required a prudential time for their full completion within the framework of domestic law, the State’s policies, and the institutional structure and coordination,” and could not be accomplished in the space of two months. The State therefore asked the Court not to consider that it had failed to comply with the recommendations in the Merits report that had to be implemented successively, which was the reason for the submission of the case to its jurisdiction, and, consequently, that it should “reject and deny the measures of reparation associated with the said recommendations that had been requested by the Commission in the pertinent section.” 27. The Commission indicated that its determination concerning reparations cannot be considered a preliminary objection. It also indicated that the information presented by the State 20 The Commission added that, during the admissibility stage, it had established as victims in the case the “members of 22 Afro-descendant communities who lived on the banks of the Cacarica River.” It also indicated that, during the merits stage, when the petitioners had delimited the presumed victims in the case more precisely, it was able to identiy 446 members of the Cacarica communities associated in CAVIDA and the women heads of household who lived in Turbo, indicating that some of these persons appear on the Unified List of Displaced People established by Law 387 of 1997. 11