46 over whom even the military judge had powers of discipline and control. Second, it was not a technically qualified defense lent by a legal professional, as required by international law.” The Commission added, “the totality of these restrictions on the right to defense during the stage of the procedures before military justice was not rectif[ied] in the subsequent civilian jurisdictions that heard the process. The victims’ right to defense was therefore undercut constantly during the entire process, as was the principle of equality of arms that should be safeguarded by judicial authorities in criminal proceedings.” The Commission therefore held that the State had violated the right of the alleged victims to be assisted by an attorney during the procedures in the military jurisdiction, in violation of article 8(2)(d) and (e). 171. The representatives agreed in general terms with the Commission’s arguments. Representatives De Vita and Cueto added that the petitioners they represented had experienced violations of articles 8(2)(b), (d) and (e) of the Convention, while representatives Vega and Sommer posited in the pleadings and motions brief that the State was responsible for violating articles 8 and 25 of the Convention; however, in their final written pleadings, they asked to Court to judge violation of article 8(1), 8(2)(d), 8(2)(g) and 8(3). 172. The Inter-American Defenders stated, “[i]n the development of the process before the military courts, the petitioners we represent were prevented from receiving the assistance of defense attorneys, and this severely constrained their right to defense, producing a procedural imbalance and leaving the alleged victims unprotected from the exercise of punitive power. They concluded, therefore, that the State had violated the right to be assisted by legal counsel during the proceedings in the military jurisdiction and to communicate freely and privately with their counsel, as required in articles 8(1), 8(2)(b), (d) and (e) of the Convention. 173. The State said only that the lack of technically qualified defense is a matter that lies outside the temporal jurisdiction of the Court. B.2 Considerations of the Court 174. Article 8(2) of the Convention, subparagraph (d), establishes “the right of the accused to defend himself personally or to be assisted by legal counsel of his own choosing, and to communicate freely and privately with his counsel.” Subparagraph (e) outlines the “the inalienable right to be assisted by counsel provided by the state, paid or not as the domestic law provides, if the accused does not defend himself personally or engage his own counsel within the time period established by law”. 175. This Court has established that it should be possible to exercise the right to defend oneself as soon as a person is named as a possible perpetrator of, or participant in, an illegal act and only culminates when the proceedings end. Affirming the contrary implies that the convention-based guarantees that protect the right to defend oneself, including Article 8(2)(b), are contingent on the investigation being at a specific procedural stage, leaving open the possibility that, prior to this, the rights of the accused are affected by acts of authority that he is unaware of or that he cannot control or oppose effectively, which is evidently contrary to the Convention. The right to defend oneself obliges the State to treat the individual at all times as a true subject of the proceedings, in the broadest sense of this concept, and not simply as its object.182 182 Cfr. Case of Barreto Leiva v. Venezuela, par. 29, and Case of J. v. Peru, par. 194.