9 with generally recognized principles of international law.” This requirement is aimed at enabling national authorities to hear the alleged violation of the protected right and, if appropriate, resolve the matter before it is heard by an international body. 47. The parties in the present case sustain a controversy regarding the exhaustion of domestic remedies. The State alleges that the petition is inadmissible because the petitioner did not file or exhaust an extraordinary recourse, the Extraordinary Recourse for Constitutional Review, with the Supreme Court of Justice. The State considers that, if the petitioner believes that there has been a breach of a constitutional norm, either because an obvious mistake was made in interpreting the Constitution or because the interpretation and the application of the above-mentioned norm was completely ignored, the Extraordinary Recourse for Constitutional Review is suitable for challenging the judgment of last resort which ruled that the appeal filed by the attorney of the victim was “manifestly groundless.” 48. As for the petitioners, they allege that they exhausted the criminal remedy aimed at securing due punishment and redress for the serious acts of violence suffered by Linda Loaiza López. They contend that an investigation of the incidents was opened on July 19, 2001, which culminated on March 9, 2006, with the conviction of Luis Carrera Almoina with a six-year sentence for the crime of grievous bodily injuries and the illegal deprivation of liberty of Linda Loaiza López, ruled by the Seventh Trial Court of the Criminal Circuit Court of Justice of the Metropolitan Area of Caracas. They claim that this judgment was appealed with the Superior Court of Appeals and that the appeal was dismissed and that, afterwards they filed an appeal of last resort for overturning the previous judgment with the Supreme Court of Justice, which was turned down as “manifestly groundless” on May 11, 2007. The petitioners consider that the recourse for constitutional review proposed by the State is “extraordinary, 8 exceptional, restricted and discretionary,” and is not suitable for the purpose of reviewing whether domestic remedies were exhausted. 49. In the present case, the Commission must decide which remedy must have been exhausted depending on the circumstances, that is, the one that is deemed capable of settling the legal 9 situation that has been violated. In the present case, involving the alleged crimes of rape, injury and attempted murder, the suitable remedy is filing criminal proceedings to identify and punish those 10 responsible; proceedings that the State must process promptly and with due diligence. The criminal proceeding brought by the Prosecutor’s Office on July 19, 2001 in the framework of which Linda Loaiza López personally filed charges on November 19, 2001, is the one that must be considered for the purpose of determining the admissibility of the complaint. The petitioners contend that this criminal proceeding passed through of all its respective stages and definitively culminated on May 11, 2007 when the appeal of last resort filed by the petitioner was dismissed, and said ruling has not been disputed by the State. 50. The Commission also observes that the petitioners have submitted evidence of a large number of complaints they filed with various bodies of the State such as the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation, the Supreme Court of Justice, the Office of the Inspector General of the Courts, and the Commission for the Restructuring and Functioning of the Judiciary System, aimed at correcting irregularities committed by the prosecutors and judges involved in the criminal proceeding between 2001 and 2007, without leading to any concrete results; claims which have not been disputed by the State. In particular they stress that, in view of the dismissal on June 6, 2003 of the individual charges filed by Linda Loaiza López, the petitioners filed appeals for reconsideration and constitutional review on July 8 and 8 Observations by the petitioners sent on September 3, 2010. 9 IACHR, Report No. 22/09, Petition 908-04 (Admissibility), Igmar Alexander Landaeta Mejías, Venezuela, March 20, 2009, paragraph 69; Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Velásquez Rodríguez Case. Judgment of July 29, 1988. Series C, No. 4, paragraph 63. 10 See, for example, IACHR, Report No. 54/01 (Admissibility and Merits), Case 12.051, Maria da Penha Maia Fernandes, Brazil, April 16, 2001.