establishes in Article 93 that petitions for habeas corpus relief shall be brought "… before the mayor under whose jurisdiction it is, or before whoever is acting on his or her behalf …"129 147. With regard to the fact that the petition for habeas corpus relief was filed with a Mayor instead of a judicial authority, the Court has held that Article 7.6 of the Convention “is clear when it establishes that the authority who must decide on the lawfulness of the ‘arrest or detention’ must be a ‘judge or court.’ As explained by the Court, “although he may have been granted competence by law, a mayor is not a judicial authority,” but rather “part of the Administration,”130 and therefore does not qualify under the requirements set forth in Article 7.6 of the Convention. 148. While the Commission notes that said recourse may be appealed before a judicial authority, the Constitutional Court of the State, in the exact words of the Court: By requiring that those detained must appeal the mayor’s decisions in order for their case to be heard by a judicial authority, the State is placing obstacles to a recourse that should, due to its nature, be simple. In addition, the law established that the mayor was obliged to decide the recourse within 48 hours, and forward the case documents to the Constitutional Court if the latter requested this, within a similar period. This means that the detained person had to wait at least four days for the Constitutional Court to hear his case. If you add to this the fact that law did not establish a time limit for the Constitutional Court to take a decision on the appeal, and that this court was the only judicial body competent to hear appeals from the entire country against the denial of habeas corpus, we can conclude that the requirement that the recourse be decided “without delay” established in Article 7.6 of the Convention is not respected. Lastly, the detained person is not brought before the Constitutional Court; consequently this body cannot verify his situation and, thus, guarantee his rights to life and personal integrity.131 149. In the instant case, the Commission notes that the recourse of habeas corpus was heard by an administrative authority and the Constitutional Court only ruled on the appeal that was not brought until November 9, 2009, more than two months after the denial of the petition for habeas corpus relief by the Office of the Mayor, and therefore the State has not provided for judicial control “without delay.” 150. Additionally, the Commission notes that when the Constitutional Court heard the appeal on the decision of the petition for habeas corpus, it did not examine the requirements set forth under the Convention in order for a person to be held in pretrial detention. On this issue, the Commission has ruled earlier in this report that evidence of responsibility of a person in the commission of a criminal offense is insufficient on its own, but that care must be taken so that this custodial measure of preventive detention serves a legitimate purpose, which is, to ensure that the accused shall not impede the development of the proceeding or evade justice. (See paragraphs 124 et sq. above). 151. The Constitutional Court ruled on the basis of two arguments: i) that Mr. Eusebio Domingo Revelles had remained in custody for four years and three months and seven days, in other words, a shorter period of time than one half of the time prescribed in the Criminal Code as the maximum jail term for the crime of illicit trafficking, which is eight years; and ii) that the provision of Article 24 of the Constitution, establishing a maximum period of preventive detention of 6 months, did not apply to his situation, inasmuch as this deadline would count from the time the 1998 Constitution took effect, which was August of 1998, and did not apply to crimes with punishments of “longer duration prison terms,” such as the case of the crime for which Eusebio Domingo Revelles was under investigation. 129 Available at: http://www.oas.org/juridico/spanish/mesicic2_ecu_anexo15.pdf IA Court of HR, Case of Chaparro Álvarez and Lapo Íñiguez v. Ecuador. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of November 21, 2007. Series C No. 170, para. 128. 130 131 IA Court of HR, Case of Chaparro Álvarez and Lapo Íñiguez v. Ecuador. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of November 21, 2007. Series C No. 170, para. 129. 36