extendible time frame for the presentation of the brief with final arguments. Hence, the Court considers that these arguments are inadmissible, because they were time-barred. 12. On October 25, 2013, the Secretariat of the Court, on the instructions of the President of the Court, granted the representatives, the State, and the Commission until November 15, 2013, to submit any observations they deemed pertinent, exclusively on the briefs and annexes presented by the State and the representatives on October 4, 2013. 13. Observations of the representative, the State, and the Commission. On November 13, 2013, the representatives of the presumed victim forwarded their brief with observations on the answers provided by the State in its brief with final arguments of October 4, 2013, to the questions posed by the Court during the public hearing, as well as on the annexes to this brief presented by the State on October 10, 2013. The Commission and the State did not submit observations. III PRELIMINARY OBJECTIONS 14. In its brief answering the Merits Report, the State presented the following arguments as “preliminary objections”: (i) a challenge of the judges and the Secretary of the Court; (ii) the rejection of the recusal presented by Judge Eduardo Vio Grossi in order not to participate in the proceedings, and (iii) the presumed failure to exhaust domestic remedies. A. The “preliminary objections” presented by the State challenging some judges and the Secretary of the Court, and rejecting the recusal presented by Judge Eduardo Vio Grossi 15. Regarding the so-called “preliminary objections” presented by the State challenging five of the judges and the Secretary of the Court, and rejecting the recusal of Judge Eduardo Vio Grossi, the President, in an Order of November 23, 2012, 14 decided that “the allegations of the lack of impartiality of some of the judges of the Court in the performance of their functions, and the supposed pressure exercised on one of the judges to recuse himself from hearing this case, presented by the State of Venezuela as a preliminary objection did not constitute a preliminary objection.” This was because he considered that “the State’s allegation of lack of impartiality was unfounded in relation to Judges Diego García-Sayán, Manuel Ventura Robles, Leonardo A. Franco, Margarette May Macaulay and Rhadys Abreu Blondet, who have not incurred in any of the statutory causes for disqualification or carried out any action that would allow their impartiality to be questioned,” and found “inadmissible and unfounded the State’s allegations with regard to the supposed lack of impartiality of Pablo Saavedra Alessandri, the Court’s Secretary.” 16. Furthermore, in an Order of November 29, 2012, 15 the Court had decided “[t]o confirm that the recusal of Judge Eduardo Vio Grossi […] was presented to the President of 14 Cf. Case of Brewer Carías v. Venezuela. Order of the acting President of the Inter-American Court, Judge Alberto Pérez Pérez, of November 23, 2012. Available at: http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/asuntos/brewer_23_11_12.pdf 15 Judge Vio Grossi indicated that “in the 1980s, [he] was a professor of the Public Law Institute of the Faculty of Legal and Political Sciences of the Universidad Central de Venezuela, of which Mr. Brewer Carías was the Director,” so that he “had a professional and work-related relationship with him.” Judge Vio Grossi added that, “[e]ven though all that was some time ago, [he] would not want this fact to give rise to any doubt, however minimal, with regard to the impartiality of both [him]self, and especially of the Court.” On November 12, 2012, the State, in its brief answering the Merits Report and the motions and arguments brief, indicated that it “reject[ed]” 7