C.3)
Procedural activity of the interested party
Arguments of the parties and of the Inter-American Commission
160. The Commission stated that it found no “basis to attribute the inactivity to the
plaintiff.” It considered that although the State claimed “that […] the plaintiff responded five
years later to the judge’s request of November 1991 to specify against whom the complaint
was directed”, it was “four months after the court’s request [that] the petitioner’s attorney
stated that the suit was directed against the Ministry of National Defense […], [and] without
prejudice to that, the petitioner’s attorney requested that a letter be issued to the Property
Registry for it to provide information on the ownership of the property.” Similarly, it referred
to the procedural inactivity during the period between April 1994 and February 1996, when
“the attorney for the petitioner withdrew the request [for a letter to be issued to the
Property Registry],” due to the lack of response by that authority. Furthermore, it found no
evidence to suggest that the alleged victim “had taken any measures or filed any motions in
the domestic proceedings for the purpose of stalling or delaying the course of the
proceedings.” On the contrary, it noted that “the petitioner […]consistently came forth in
the case, requesting the Court to proceed with the trial, and following completion of the
evidentiary phase, he continually and repeatedly requested the judge to issue a judgment
in the case.”
161. The representatives asserted that “the plaintiff always tried to move the proceedings
forward at all times” and that “there is no evidence to suggest a lack of diligence on his
part.” They claimed that this has been demonstrated in the fact that: i) he had to “request
three times that the suit be served,” while the judge “prior to the notice of suit, ordered
reports from different State entities […], which were totally unnecessary.” This, because
“after five years and two months since the proceeding began, the suit was served without
having received the information requested”; ii) he “advised the judge on the delays in the
presentation of the medical expert opinions” and, iii) requested three times for a ruling to
be issued.
162. The State of Argentina held that “the detailed analysis” of the proceedings shows
that “the delay […] is directly due to the lack of diligence by the private attorneys who
assisted Furlan.” As basis for this statement it indicated that “in the first stage of the
proceedings” the petitioner: i) took over 2 months after jurisdiction was established to
amend the petition, and over one month after that to file a brief “requesting the
continuation of the actions”; ii) “from the file there is no evidence [to show] that the letter
[sent to the General Staff of the Army] to report on investigations related to the case of
Furlan was prepared and processed by the attorney”; iii) the judge asked the attorney to
indicate against whom the action was being brought, given “the contradictions” in which he
had allegedly incurred, since “the petition filed attributed ownership of the property to the
Army, and subsequently, in the addendum to the suit […] it offered as informative evidence
a letter sent to the Property Registry.” It added that the interested party, “just four months
later, […] stated that it was filing the suit against the Ministry of National Defense and
requested, as a preliminary measure, for the evidence to be offered for this purpose to be
required”; iv) it took three months to prepare the letter to the Property Registry and five
months to the Cadastre Office; and v) “inexplicably the attorney presented a new brief […],
on November 1, 1993 […,]requesting “a new communication to be issued to the Office of
Property Registry” with the data given by the Cadastre Office. This letter was prepared “the
following year, in March 1994.” It concluded by indicating that the State “could not have
incurred in a delay in recognizing the ownership of the properties during [the] first five
years, given that it had not even been notified of the petition.”
53
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