An Appeals Court has just freed opposition leader Carlos Fernandez who had been detained accused by the Government for his part in the two month strike. Fernandez, the Head of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce, Fedecamaras, was relaesed accorrding to the Appeals Court, “for lack of evidence”. According to the Prosecutor from the Attorney General’s office, such evidence was unnecessary because the investigation was ongoing, but that is not the way it is supposed to work in Venezuela. To detain, there had to be evidence for charges like rebellion, which require armed insurgence against the Government, which Mr. Fernandez never did.
There are two clear things from this. First the Attorney General’s office is definitely rushing cases to the Courts in order to please the President. Unfortunately, to do this, he has to use political motivated prosecutors and judges in order to issue detention orders and they have proven to be fairly incompetent so far. . On the other hand, there remains within the judicial system judges who are unwilling to bend the law, even if their politics agree with Chavez. In two cases this week, the Courts have made the Attorney General’s office look very bad, not becaused the cases were reversed, but by using arguments like “manifest incompetence” in the case of the oil leaders or “absence of evidence” in today’s case. There is some hope after all.
The Devil's Excrement 
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