Solicitud de la Comisión de ampliación de plazo para contestar las Excepciones Preliminares.
July 9, 1991
Lic. Manuel Ventura
Robles
Secretary, Inter-American Court of Human Rights
San Jose, Costa Rica
Case Nos. 10150 - 10274
Dear Mr. Secretary,
On behalf of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, I respectfully request that the Inter-American Court of Human rights grant the Commission an extension of time, until September 15, 1991, to deliver its response to the preliminary exceptions presented in the above referenced cases by the legal representative of the Government of Suriname.
The reasons for this request are as follows:
1) The delegate of the Commission, Oliver Jackman, is not available at this time so as to be duly consulted regarding the Commission's response.
2) The legal advisor to the Commission and attorney for the victims is away from Washington, D.C., site of the Commission's headquarters, during the next month and a half and therefore, will not be able to participate in preparing the Commission's response until a later date.
3) The Court's insistence that pleadings be in Spanish presents insuperable logistical and timing difficulties for the Commission's legal representative as well as its Assistant Executive Secretary, whose native language is English. It is not possible to respect the deadline fixed by the Court and render the additional pleadings in Spanish.
4) Although the preliminary exceptions and counter-memorials of the Government were ostensibly sent to the Commission's Secretariat on June 28 of this year, as of the writing of this note the Commission has yet to receive a fully legible set of said pleadings. Even the putative originals sent by special air courier, which arrived on July 8, 1991, are only partially legible and not amenable to further transmission by facsimile. In other words, clear copies are still needed, and once receive, must necessarily be re-transmitted to Messrs. Jackman and Grossman.
For all of the foregoing reasons the Inter-American Commission respectfully requests that the time period accorded to it for the purpose of presenting its replies to the Government's pleadings be extended for a reasonable period of time, namely September 15, 1991.
Thank you for your kind consideration.
Sincerely yours,
(s)Edith Márquez
Rodríguez
Executive Secretary