19 VI PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS A. Inclusion of Marcelina Guillén Riveros as an alleged victim by the representatives A.1. Arguments of the parties and the Commission 53. The State argued that, based on Article 35(1) of the Court’s Rules of Procedure, Marcelina Guillén Riveros was not included in the list of alleged victims identified by the Commission in its Report on Admissibility and Merits, or in its brief submitting the case before the Court. Consequently, in order to guarantee the State’s right of defense, she could not be considered as an alleged victim before this Court. Furthermore, it pointed out that the representatives have not submitted the judicial or notarial resolution that certifies her as the “sole heir or beneficiary” in an intestate succession proceeding or, in her case, as the “universal heir” of the Guillén Riveros family. Therefore, it asked the Court to declare inadmissible the inclusion of Marcelina Guillén Riveros as an alleged victim in the instant case. In its final written arguments, Peru stated that this reasoning with respect to Article 35(1) is consistent with the Court’s jurisprudence and with Article 50 of the Convention. It also argued that “the instant case does not involve one of assumptions set forth in Article 35(2) of the Rules of Procedure, without indicating why. 54. The representatives requested that the Court include Marcelina Guillén Riveros as an alleged victim in this case. They explained that, due to difficulties inherent to the case, she did not learn of the international proceedings brought by the other alleged victims until after the issuance of the Report on Admissibility and Merits. These difficulties consisted of the following: the case involved serious human rights violations to the detriment of 15 persons and their next of kin; the characteristics of the territory, a rural area of Peru in which there are serious logistical difficulties in maintaining contact between members of the same community, since the time required to travel from a farm or to communicate with a neighbor or family member who lives in a farmhouse without electricity, telephone or transportation, can be long, and the rupture between members of the community that would have occurred as a result of the facts. They also pointed out that the identification of Marcelina Guillén as an alleged victim in this case would not impair the State’s right of defense, especially in view of the fact that Peru had accepted its international responsibility in relation to her sister, Dionicia Guillén Riveros, and was fully aware of the inclusion of her parents as victims identified in the application. In their final written arguments, the representatives alleged that Marcelina Guillén Riveros was among the persons detained and threatened with death by military personnel in 1991 while they were dynamiting, the mine, and that the Army only let them go because they promised that they would say nothing about what happened in the mine. According to the representatives, the intimidating effect of this event “presented serious complications for her to maintain contact with the other relatives of the victims and the community in general.” 55. The Commission pointed out that although Article 35(1) of the Rules of Procedure refers to the identification of the victims in the Merits Report, this rule is not absolute, since Article 35(2) of the same instrument refers to special situations in which this is not possible. On this basis, it considered that, due to the nature of the case, the explanation provided by the representatives was reasonable. It also argued that the alleged impairment of the State’s right of defense was not justified, since the State had several opportunities in the proceedings before the Court to defend itself. Therefore, it requested that the Court “dismiss this preliminary objection.” A.2. Considerations of the Court