received the statements of the alleged victim and two expert witnesses, one offered by the Commission and another offered by the State. The judges of the Court also requested further information from the parties and the Commission. 12. Amici curiae. The Court received three amicus curiae briefs presented by: a) the Civil Association for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights (XUMEK)6; b) the Transparency and Human Rights Law Clinic of the Law Faculty of the Alberto Hurtado University of Chile7, and c) the Observatory on the Right to Communication.8 13. Final written arguments and observations. On July 20, 2022, the State, the representatives and the Commission submitted, respectively, their final written arguments and final written observations. In addition, the State and the representatives each presented an annex with their submissions. 14. Observations on the annexes. On August 1, 2022, the State presented its observations on the annex submitted by the representatives. On the same date, the Commission stated that it had no observations to make. The representatives did not submit observations. 15. Deliberation of the case. The Court began deliberating this judgment on November 15, 2022. III JURISDICTION 16. The Court has jurisdiction to hear this case pursuant to Article 62(3) of the American Convention, given that Chile has been a State Party to the Convention since August 21, 1990, and accepted the Court’s contentious jurisdiction on that same date. IV PRELIMINARY OBJECTIONS 17. The State filed two preliminary objections, which the Court will examine in the following order: A) Control of the legality of the Commission’s submission of the case, and B) Objection of fourth instance. A. Control of the legality of the Commission’s submission of the case A.1 Arguments of the parties and the Commission 18. The State raised two issues in relation to this objection. First, it alleged a serious error, attributable to the Commission, for its failure to follow up on the State’s efforts to redress the alleged victim. It pointed out that the Commission has not properly justified the reasons why the Court should examine this case, and that its application for submission is general and imprecise. It added that the Commission mentioned that, “although the State The brief was signed by Estefanía Araya, vice president of XUMEK. It discusses the importance of protecting the right to freedom of expression, specifically of environmental defenders, and how the lack of this right interferes with access to information for people living in a society. 7 The brief was signed by Branislav Marelic Rokov. It assesses the scope of the State’s obligations to investigate, punish and provide reparation, based on the considerations analyzed in the instant case. 8 The brief was signed by Javier García. It includes statistics on cases involving the crimes of insults and slander in Chile during the last decade and identifies cases in which the statements denounced concerned issues of public interest. 6 6