the proceedings. As evidence of this, the petitioner: i) on April 16, 1991, November 8, 1991 and February 22, 1996 requested that the suit be served (supra para. 80, 82 and 84); ii) on October 21, 1997 he requested the opening of the period for taking evidence (supra para. 90); iii) on December 16, 1997 he requested evidence to be provided (supra para. 90); iv) on February 12, 1998 he requested that expert witnesses be appointed; v) on December 10, 1998 he requested that the psychiatrist expert witness be summoned with a warning of removal (supra para. 95); vi) on February 25, 2000 he requested that the evidence be certified and that the period for taking evidence be closed (supra para. 97); and vii) on April 18, May 23, and August 22 he requested that a judgment be issued (supra para. 98). 171. Furthermore, the Court notes that the State’s main argument is that the delay in the proceedings can be attributed to the representatives of the alleged victim, since they could have acted with greater diligence at certain procedural moments (supra para. 162). With regard to this point, the Court finds that these claims are based on the alleged delay of: i) 2 months to amend the application and one month to submit a brief requesting the continuation of the actions; ii) four months to indicate that the complaint was being brought against the Ministry of National Defense; iii) three months to prepare the letter to the Property Registry and five months to prepare the communication to the Cadastre Office; iv) four months to prepare a new letter to the Property Registry ; v) 3 months to serve notice of the suit; and vi) one month and 25 days to request the appointment of the expert witnesses. The sum of all of these terms is 22 months and 25 days, in other words, one year, 10 months and 25 days. 172. In this regard, the Court considers that the State has not demonstrated how the petitioner’s conduct, in relation to each type of action, contravened or exceeded the legal limit established for procedural terms. On the contrary, the State merely enumerated the aforementioned terms (supra para. 162 and 163), without providing an explanation as to why the terms granted by Argentinean law for the parties to carry out these types of actions were being exceeded, for example, for preparing a letter or notifying the parties. In this regard, based on the regulations of the CPCCN, the Court finds that if all the terms or periods established for ordinary civil proceedings were complied with, these proceedings would last approximately 9 months. 173. In this regard, the expert witness Moreno stated that:312 […] proceedings for damages last an average of 4 years; however, they should not last that long. These proceedings should be quicker, not only because of the procedural standards that establish the term for production of evidence and the term that the Judge has to issue the judgment, but also because these terms often fall under an operative framework of spectator judges. The truth is that a process should last no more than 2 years.” 174. In this regard, the State has not shown to what extent and how likely it was that the process could have been resolved within a reasonable term had the applicant acted differently.313 Furthermore, bearing in mind that the proceedings overall took over 12 years to complete, whereas according to expert witness Moreno it should have lasted between two to four years, and the time of the delay allegedly attributable to the plaintiff is 312 2012. Cf. Statement of the expert witness Gustavo Daniel Moreno at the public hearing held on February 27, 313 Cf. mutatis mutandi, ECHR Muti v. Italy, (No. 14146/88) Judgment of 22 February 1994, para. 16. In this case, the European Court analyzed the reasonable term for proceedings initiated by the plaintiff to claim a disability pension. (“[T]he Government [has] not shown that the possibility afforded to Mr Muti of speeding up the proceedings was a real one. Despite the information provided by the government, there is no proof that such a step would have had any prospects of success […]. In these circumstances, it would not appear that the applicant's alleged passivity contributed to slowing down the proceedings”). 56