23 relentlessly on his legal suit and that in the period 1990-1994 was facing criminal charges because of the “State’s refusal to recognize the opinion of the Nation’s Treasury Solicitor.” - Conduct of the competent authorities. The ten years that elapsed between the time the suit was filed and the decision delivered by the Supreme Court is not a reasonable time. The Commission also pointed out that for one year the case file was outside the Supreme Court and that the latter delayed another year in delivering its decision on the last petition for permission to litigate without paying filing fees. In the meantime, it issued the decision closing the evidentiary phase and delivered its decision one year later. b. Although Mr. Cantos petitioned the Supreme Court to be permitted to litigate without paying filing fees in advance, which is his right under Article 8 of the Convention, court authorities denied his petition five times and instead ordered him to pay filing fees and the fees of the attorneys and experts who participated in the proceeding for a total of US$145.528.568.50 (one hundred forty-five million five hundred twenty-eight thousand, dollars and fifty cents). With that, “Mr. Cantos was left shouldering an unfair and disproportionate burden attributable to the State because of the expenses it incurred by its needless prosecution of the proceedings” and “the costs incurred in compiling an extensive body of evidence that the Supreme Court […] never even cited when delivering its ruling,” which was a violation of the right to a recourse to a court of law, protected under Article 25 of the American Convention. c. The ruling delivered by the Supreme Court violated substantive principles of due process recognized in Articles 8 and 25 of the American Convention, all in relation to Article 1(1) thereof, because it denied the legal efficacy of the agreement that the de facto Governor had signed with Mr. Cantos; its invocation of the statute of limitations was unreasonable because it failed to establish the existence of “the elements of that procedural legal instrument and […] to determine the point in time at which the clock started to run” for purposes of time-barring; in general, the ruling was the arbitrary culmination of “a series of events that began in 1972 and that, taken together, depict a legal quagmire in which justice was denied.” The Supreme Court ruling failed to take into account relevant and decisive evidence and arguments, thereby putting the objective truth out of reach. It failed to examine abuses committed by public officials in the various criminal cases brought against the victim and of which he was ultimately acquitted. The Supreme Court’s September 3, 1996 ruling was arbitrary because it failed to examine carefully all the elements related to the 1982 agreement negotiated between the Governor of the Province of Santiago del Estero and Mr. Cantos, whose signatures signify consent to be bound by the agreement. The latter was never annulled, under either criminal or civil law, on the grounds that the signatures were forged and Mr. Cantos was never convicted of forging the agreement. Mr. Jensen Viano signed the agreement as Governor of the Province and not simply as a private citizen signing a private contract. The debate over whether this public official was acting as an authority for the province or as federally-appointed de facto governor [interventor] is irrelevant, as is the issue of whether the Province of Santiago del Estero was bound by the agreement. The Convention violations being alleged before this Court can, in international jurisdiction, only be attributable to the federal