Court of Human Rights (hereafter "the Court" or "the Inter-American Court") and the Commission have held on repeated opportunities that "under the generally recognized principles of international law and international practice, the rule which requires the prior exhaustion of domestic remedies is designed for the benefit of the State, for that rule seeks to excuse the State from having to respond to charges before an international body for acts imputed to it before it has had the opportunity to remedy them by internal means.”4 Nevertheless, the Convention stipulates that this provision does not apply when domestic remedies are not available in fact or in law. More specifically, Article 46(2) establishes exceptions to the general principle of the exhaustion of domestic remedies, when the domestic legislation of the State concerned does not afford due process of law for the protection of the right or rights that have allegedly been violated; if the party alleging violation of his rights has been denied access to the remedies under domestic law or has been prevented from exhausting them; or if there has been unwarranted delay in rendering a final judgment. 37. In the first place, in the case at hand the petitioner maintains that on September 25, 1997, he exhausted the remedies available within domestic jurisdiction, without success, when he sought the benefit of conditional release pursuant to Article 1 of law 24.390, and a declaration of the unconstitutionality of Article 10 (11 according to the current numbering) of that law, which denied this benefit to persons accused of drug trafficking. 38. Although the State maintained initially that the court rulings on the release question did not constitute grounds for maintaining that domestic remedies have been exhausted, the Commission wishes to point out that, in accordance with its previous jurisprudence, "in the context of pre-trial detention, the presentation of the request for conditional release followed by the denial thereof suffices to substantiate the exhaustion of remedies.” 5 39. The documentation supplied by the parties shows that on September 25, 1997, the Supreme Court of Justice, acting under Article 280 of the Code of Civil and Commercial Procedure, dismissed the constitutional challenge and the application for conditional release brought by the defense in case 1090, "Jenkins, Gabriel Oscar, motion of unconstitutionality." Consequently the Commission considers that 4 See I/A Court H.R., Decision in the Matter of Viviana Gallardo and Others, of November 13, 1981, Series A, Nº G 101/81, para. 26. 5 IACHR, Report No. 12/96, Case 11.245, Jorge A. Giménez, Argentina, March 1, 1996, para. 57. 8