14 exclude from the case the employees who were not duly represented in the proceedings before this jurisdiction. The Commission’s arguments 73. The Inter-American Commission indicated that this preliminary objection was not based on any norm that established the lack of “legal representation” before the Court as an obstacle to accede to the Court’s jurisdiction. In this regard, the Court’s Rules of Procedure establish that, in the absence of information regarding representation, the Commission shall be the procedural representative “as guarantor of the public interest under the American Convention on Human Rights to ensure that they have the benefit of legal representation.” In addition, as an argument concerning the second preliminary objection, the Commission had indicated that the “lack of a representative” is not an obstacle “to the Court’s competence” because, as established in Article 44 of the Convention, any group of persons may report the violation of the rights it establishes. In this case, the petitioners are a “group of persons” and this complies with the hypothesis for legitimacy established in the said Article 44. The common intervenors’ arguments 74. The common intervenors requested the Court to reject the third objection because the Inter-American Commission was responsible for representing the alleged victims who had not granted a special power of attorney to represent them in the processing of the case. They also based their arguments on the criteria adopted by the Court in similar cases. The Court’s findings 75. Article 33 (Filing of the application) of the Court’s Rules of Procedure establishes that: The brief containing the application shall indicate: […] 3. The names and addresses of the representatives of the alleged victims and their next of kin. If this information is not provided in the application, the Commission shall act on behalf of the alleged victims and their next of kin in its capacity as guarantor of the public interest under the American Convention on Human Rights to ensure that they have the benefit of legal representation. 76. The Court observes that when the Commission submitted the case to the Court’s consideration, it attached the powers of attorney of more than 215 alleged victims. The said powers of attorney were granted to two different groups of representatives. Given that the groups of representatives were unable to agree on a common intervenor, the Court appointed Javier Mujica Petit and Francisco Ercilio Moura as the common intervenors of the representatives pursuant to the provisions of Article 23(2) of the Rules of Procedure. Moreover, when notifying the application, the Court indicated that “in the case of the alleged victims who were not represented [as a result of this decision] or who had no representative, the Commission would be their representative in the proceedings as guarantor of the public interest to ensure that they have the benefit of legal representation,” pursuant to the provisions of Article 33(3) of the Rules of Procedure (supra para. 34).