9 provisions that contemplate restrictions to State sovereignty must be interpreted and applied taking into account this reality. In this sense, the rule of prior exhaustion of domestic remedies is also an expression of the validity of the sovereignty of the State and of the need to give the State the preferential opportunity to act with respect to alleged human rights violations. This is even more relevant in the present era, in which all States parties to the Convention are governed by the democratic rule of law, i.e., they adhere to democracy. 32 Consequently, it can be deduced from the foregoing that compliance with the requirement established in Article 46(1)(a) of the Convention must take place before the petition is submitted to the Commission. B. The petition The first comment that should be made concerning the petition that initiates the procedure before the Commission that may conclude before the Court is that compliance with the rule of prior exhaustion of domestic remedies is, essentially, an obligation of the presumed victim or the petitioner. It is the latter who must comply with the requirement of prior exhaustion of domestic remedies; in other words, to be able to allege a violation before the inter-American jurisdictional body, 33 the petitioner must previously do so before the corresponding domestic jurisdictional bodies. Otherwise, this would evidently prevent the prompt and timely achievement of the abovementioned effet utile. Thus, I reiterate, the aforementioned rule is a requirement or obligation that must be met by the presumed victim or the petitioner. This is why the Commission's Rules of Procedure in force at the time of the facts and at the time the petition was lodged, 34 approved by the Commission, 35 which reflect the interpretation it has given to Article 46 of the Convention, stipulates in Article 29(d), that the petition must contain “information on any steps taken to exhaust domestic remedies, or the impossibility of doing so.” Then, the petition itself must indicate that the rule in question has been complied with or that one of the exceptions to it has operated. Clearly for the same reason, Article 34(3) of the Commission’s Rules of Procedure establishes that “(w)here the petitioner claims that he or she is unable to prove compliance with the requirement of this Article, it shall be for the Government against which the petition is directed to demonstrate to the Commission that domestic remedies have not been previously exhausted, unless this is clear from the background information contained in the petition.” In other words, this provision indicates that the specific exceptions to the rule of prior exhaustion of domestic remedies are established in favor of the presumed victim or the petitioner. Consequently, it is the petitioner and no one else, not even the Commission, who may argue or Inter-American Democratic Charter adopted at the Twenty-eighth Special Session of the General Assembly of the Organization of American States, by Resolution of September 11, 2001. 32 33 Art. 44 of the Convention: “Any person or group of persons, or any nongovernmental entity legally recognized in one or more member states of the Organization, may lodge petitions with the Commission containing denunciations or complaints of violation of this Convention by a State Party.” Art. 61(1) of the Convention: “Only the States Parties and the Commission shall have the right to submit a case to the Court.” 34 Hereinafter, the Rules of Procedure of the Commission. 35 Adopted by the Commission in its 660th Session, on April 8, 1980, hereinafter the Commission’s Rules of Procedure.