5 judicata as established in Article 23 of the Federal Constitution, in the sense that ‘No criminal trial shall have more than three instances.’” 13. On July 25, 2000, the Commission transmitted the State’s communication to the claimants in order for them to submit their comments within a term of thirty days. On August 18, 2000, the claimants requested the holding of a hearing before the Inter-American Commission to be held in the course of its next session. 14. On October 11, 2000, and in the course of its 108th Regular Session, the Inter-American Commission held a hearing on this case, which was attended by the claimants and the State. During the hearing the claimants described the facts of the case and the legal basis that supported their petition. The State, indicated that the penal proceedings against Mr. Alfonso Martín-del-Campo had concluded with the handing down of a sentence to 50 years in prison against him, and that it was “res judicata from the jurisdictional point of view [since] at all stages of the prosecution, the preliminary investigation, the first instance, the motion of appeal before the Superior Court, and the amparo appeal hearing, at all such stages; it was afforded to the convicted party the benefit of defence, an impartial trial and due process, and judicial guarantees were observed.” Further, Mexico alleged non occurrence of torture as alleged by the representatives, with support from the decisions of the Distrito Federal Attorney General’s Office and Human Rights Commission, the National Human Rights Commission, and the Distrito Federal Superior Court, which had resolved on Mr. Martín-del-Campo’s recognition-of-innocence argument. 15. The State likewise indicated that an amparo appeal hearing against the decision of the Distrito Federal Superior Court which declared the recognition-ofinnocence remedy filed by Mr. Alfonso Martín-del-Campo not applicable had, “to the best of its knowledge not been filed.” It added that this would be the right legal way to challenge it through the federal courts, and that said way was still available to the alleged victim to lay out his case against the cited decision. In this regard, the claimants informed at the above-mentioned hearing, that they had not filed an amparo appeal hearing because “it would be a repetition of the same concept of violation, the same argument that the Mexican authorities were denying the occurrence of torture, and were confirming the conviction.” During the public hearing a member of the Inter-American Commission posed questions to the parties on the exhaustion of domestic remedies and asked the claimants to submit a report on this subject within a month. 16. On November 14, 2000, December 22, 2000, and February 16, 2001, the claimants sent to the Commission notes requesting extensions to the term granted in the course of the public hearing held, to submit information on the exhaustion of domestic remedies. The Inter-American Commission granted all the extensions requested. On March 22, 2001, the claimants submitted the information required. In their communication they, inter alia, expressed the following: […] without detriment to the fact that the domestic instance has characterised itself in the instant case by flagrant violations against judicial protection and the due process (which would free the claimants from the obligation to exhaust them), these are the different remedies attempted both, judicially and administratively at the domestic level: […] 1. The proceedings were carried out in the first instance at Penal Court 55 of the Distrito Federal. The judgment at the first instance was handed down on May 28, 1993, and, declared Mr. Martín-del-Campo guilty of homicide for the death of Ms. Juana Patricia Martín-del-Campo and Mr. Gerardo Zamudio-Aldaba exclusively on the basis of