20 103. According to testimony given by Licentiate Linda Rivera de Toro before a notary public on January 7, 1987, "in the last months of 1981 and the first of the following year," a writ of habeas corpus was brought in behalf of Francisco Fairén Garbi and Yolanda Solís Corrales, and she was the judge appointed to carry out the investigation. She went to the customs post of Las Manos, on the border with Nicaragua, where she saw from the records that Francisco Fairén Garbi and Yolanda Solís Corrales had entered Honduran territory in a vehicle described in those records. Subsequently, and while preparing a dissertation on habeas corpus, she searched for the record and report on that case in the archives of the Supreme Court and was unable to find them. 104. Francisco Fairén Almengor, father of the person disappeared, testified he did not initiate judicial proceedings because he had been told the writs of habeas corpus were ineffective and had been advised it was better to create "international pressure" (testimony of Francisco Fairén Almengor. Also testimony of Elizabeth Odio Benito). 105. Based upon his knowledge of the conditions in Honduras in that period, the former Consul General of Costa Rica in Honduras testified that the intervention of an ordinary judge would have had very little result in obtaining the freedom of a political detainee in the hands of the military. He also mentioned that the steps to exhume a body could not be taken by the Consulate of the Embassy, but only by the Ministry of Foreign Relations of Costa Rica (testimony of Antonio Carrillo Montes). 106. In its submission of October 31, 1986, the Government alleged that, despite having urged the father of Francisco Fairén Garbi to take advantage of "the ordinary judicial remedies," no steps were taken to exhaust them before presenting the case to the Commission, as the Commission admitted in Resolution 16/84. It added, moreover, that the Commission's allegation in Resolution 23/86, that the petitioner had no access to the domestic remedies or was impeded from exhausting them, was for the purpose of shifting the burden of proof from the petitioner to Honduras. The Government argued that the Commission deprived it of an important means of defense by admitting the petition without requiring the prior exhaustion of internal remedies. 107. The Government also maintained that the bringing of a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of Francisco Fairén Garbi and Yolanda Solís Corrales did not prove the exhaustion of domestic remedies. According to the Government, the proceeding was atypical in that it was carried out at a border post rather that in a jail or place of detention. Under those circumstances, it concluded, the Commission should not have admitted the petition, and was even less justified in submitting the case to the Court. 108. During the hearings on preliminary objections, the Commission argued that the exception to the rule of prior exhaustion found in Article 46 (2) of the Convention were applicable because due process did not exist in Honduras at that time. Access to internal remedies in cases of disappearances was impeded, and the remedies invoked in similar cases, without exception, had been unjustifiably delayed. 109. Given the special circumstances of this case, it is not necessary to determine whether steps were taken to exhaust the internal remedies of Honduras. In ruling on this point, the Court notes, first, that the Government did not contest admissibility by objecting to the failure to exhaust internal remedies when it received formal notice of the petition. Neither did it respond to the Commission's request for information. That fact, alone, is sufficient to overrule the objection, for the rule of prior exhaustion is a prerequisite established in favor of the State, which may waive its right, even tacitly, and this occurs, inter alia, when it is not timely invoked. 110. On the other hand, it must be kept in mind that, as a norm of international law and the logical correlative of the obligation to exhaust internal remedies, the rule is not applicable when there are no remedies. This principle is especially relevant in the instant case, in light of the repeated official statement that Francisco Fairén Garbi and Yolanda Solís Corrales were not in