19 85. That same day, February 18, 2003, the Court issued an Order in which it established that the State had waived all the preliminary objections raised in its answer to the application; that there continued to be a dispute between the parties regarding the scope of the acknowledgment of responsibility by the State regarding the facts and the rights; and that “partial acceptance of the facts and the rights” expressed by the State did not interrupt the process of receiving the evidence ordered. Therefore, it decide to admit, for all relevant effects, the waiver by the State of the preliminary objections that it had raised, and to continue with the public hearing that was summoned (supra para. 45). 86. On the second day of the public hearing, February 19, 2003, after the first four witnesses had been heard, the State expressed that: yesterday it accepted, and it respected, rather than accepted, the decision of this [...] Court to continue the public hearing to receive testimonial evidence and expert opinions. The State of Guatemala also noted carefully the content of said statements and it has reached the conclusion that said statements do not refer to disputed facts and, on the other hand, they include points that are still being heard by the domestic legal system in Guatemala. As men of State, the representatives of Guatemala cannot remain in the hall to listen to testimony on facts on which our legal system has not yet decided. Therefore, with all due respect for this […] Inter-American Court of Human Rights and for the representatives of the victim and the representatives of the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, the State of Guatemala has decided to withdraw from this stage and it will be present at the conclusion of the public hearing to state its final position with respect to this hearing. In this regard, we wish to ask permission of this Honorable Court to allow us to leave the hall. After these statements, in connection with the expressions of the Agent of the State, the President of the Court, Judge Cançado Trindade, read the provisions regarding inaction by the parties, set forth in Article 27, paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Rules of Procedure, and he advised the parties of the need for the State to be present at the appropriate time to present its final pleadings at the public hearing. The Agents of the State then withdrew from the public hearing, but in accordance with the indications of the President of the Court, they returned to the hearing at the appropriate time to present the final oral pleadings of the State (supra para. 46). 87. During the public hearing, on February 19, 2003, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Guatemala issued a press release entitled “[e]l Estado de Guatemala contribuye a la justicia en el Caso Mack Chang aceptando la responsabilidad institucional ante la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos” [“[t]he State of Guatemala contributes to justice in the Mack Chang case accepting institutional responsibility before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights”], in which it stated the following: The Rules of Procedure de the Inter-American Court of Human Rights refer –in Article 52- to the general principle according to which a respondent State before this Court may inform the Court of its acquiescence to the claims of the applicant parties, that is, it may decide to accept its responsibility in the case being heard. […] Applying this principle, on last February 14, the State of Guatemala officially communicated to the [...] Court its decision to accept its institutional responsibility in the Myrna Mack Chang Case No. 10,636. […] Taking into account the practice of the Inter-American Court in all previous cases in which a respondent State accepted institutional responsibility, and based on the reasoning that this action by the State in fact concludes the evidentiary stage, the Government asked [the] Court to continue processing of the case by moving into the reparations stage foreseen in the proceeding.