for nullification that was refused because the Court found that the appropriate remedy was for the petitioner to invoke Article 31 of Law 17.613. Therefore, the Commission finds that the action for nullification is neither an adequate nor an effective remedy for resolving the petitioners’ claims. 43. The Commission considers that the petitioners exhausted the domestic remedies established by the State when they filed their claims before the Special Commission created by Article 31 of Law 17.613. 44. The jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court has established that:, “A number of remedies exist in the legal system of every country, but not all are applicable in every circumstance.”11 The Commission is of the opinion that the petitioners are not obliged to seek judicial nullification of the decisions that rejected their claims that were issued by the Special Commission with the approval of the Central Bank, nor to institute criminal proceedings against the members of the Special Commission, nor to go back to Congress to seek new legislation to resolve their difficult situation. On the facts in the instant case, the petitioners are only required to present prima facie evidence that demonstrates that the Special Commission acted arbitrarily and that, as a consequence, it discriminated against them and denied them equal protection before the law. If the Special Commission indeed did act in an irregular manner, then that is a matter to be decided at the merits stage of the proceedings. 45. The Commission recalls that the Inter-American Court has held that the mere existence of domestic remedies does not entail an obligation to exhaust them because they must be adequate and effective. Adequate domestic remedies are those which are suitable to protect the infringement of a legal right. The Uruguayan parliament attempted to contain the financial crisis by the enactment of Law 17.630 (Law on Restructuring the Financial System). For that purpose, the Law created a Special Commission to review the 1,200 claims, which seemed to be a suitable mechanism. However, according to the petitioners, this Special Commission was made of persons in positions of confidence in the government and it adopted an attitude that totally contravened the provisions of the law and acted in an irregular manner by accepting favorable arguments of witnesses in a few cases, while refusing, based on the same arguments, other claims that were in an identical situation, in violation of the right to equal protection before the law. Consequently, of the more than 1,200 petitions, only 22 were approved. The petitioners not only exhausted this remedy, which was created especially for them, but, when it proved ineffective in all but 22 isolated cases, they sought a political solution from Congress. 46. The petitioners have substantiated their allegation that the Special Commission functioned in an irregular manner by pointing out that on October 13, 2005, the prosecutorEduardo Fernández Dovat requested Judge Luis Charles to indict the former Board of Directors of the Central Bank of Uruguay for the irregular way in which they proceeded with respect to the depositors of the Trade and Commerce Bank (TCB), alleging that they did not adopt uniform guidelines for accepting the petitions of the TCB depositors. The Prosecutor’s Office sought the indictment of former Central Bank directors, Julio de Brun, Miguel Vieytes, and Andrés Pieroni. The trial is still pending. 47. The State must not only indicate which domestic remedies remain available to the petitioners but must also demonstrate their efficacy. It is not necessary to exhaust all existing domestic remedies, merely those that are adequate to address the situation concerned.12 The Commission concludes that the instant petition is admissible and that the petitioners exhausted the available domestic remedies. Consequently, the requirement contained in Article 46(1)(a) of the American Convention has been met. 2. 11 12 Time limit for the presentation of the petition I/A Court H.R., Case of Velásquez Rodríguez, Judgment of July 29, 1988, para. 64. Cf. Héctor Faúndez Ledesma, EL SISTEMA INTERAMERICANO DE PROTECCION DE LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS, 3era edición, p. 305. 12