11 III 33. The Court has jurisdiction to hear the instant case. Peru has been a Party to the Convention since July 28, 1978, and recognized the contentious jurisdiction of the Court, as set out in Article 62 of the Convention, on January 1, 1981. Although the Government has interposed a preliminary objection it calls “lack of jurisdiction of the Court,” in its reasoning it does not dispute the power of the tribunal to rule on the objections interposed by the Government, for it refers only to the inadmissibility of the application filed by the Commission on February 14, 1992, an issue that will be examined below. IV 34. Before taking up the preliminary objections, the Court will refer to some issues raised by the representative of the Government during the public hearing, relating to the certification issued by the Court regarding the reception and withdrawal of the so-called first application (supra 10). The representative declared that the application arrived in due form on June 7, 1991, for it was only on that date that the requirements stipulated in Article 25 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court then in force were complied with [. . .] that the time limit provided under Article 51, paragraph 1 of the Convention having fallen due on May 31, 1991, the application entered the Court after the deadline had passed, that is, on June 7. 35. In order to fully understand the Government’s observation and deal with the preliminary objections, it is important to recall that Article 51(1) of the Convention provides the following: 1. If, within a period of three months from the date of the transmittal of the report of the Commission to the states concerned, the matter has not either been settled or submitted by the Commission or by the state concerned to the Court and its jurisdiction accepted, the Commission may, by the vote of an absolute majority of its members, set forth its opinion and conclusions concerning the question submitted for its consideration. 36. The report was transmitted to the Government on March 1, 1991. The period stipulated would therefore have fallen due on May 31 of that same year. The Government received the report on April 5 and then requested of the Commission that the 60 days referred to in paragraph 4 of the operative part of Report Nº 29/91 (supra 23) begin to run as of the date of receipt and not the date of mailing. This was accepted by the Commission, with the result that the deadline for the Government was moved to June 5, theoretically a later date than the original one. The Government submitted its observations on May 27. In its note, it requested that “the Commission comply with its Regulations and the Pact of San Jose and therefore decide not to take the case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights without first weighing the observations made in the present note and making the appropriate procedural corrections.” The Commission, on its part, dated the application May 30. Both documents -the Peruvian note and the application- were received on Monday, June 3, the former by the Commission and the latter by the Court. As indicated in the certification issued by the Secretary, the Executive Secretary of the Commission subsequently telephoned the Court on June 12 and announced that the application would be withdrawn. This was accomplished by a letter from the