The Devil's Excrement

Here you
will find a document, unfortunately in Spanish, by Roman Duque Corredor, a
former Supreme Court Justice, about the “Manipulation of the rule of law
as an instrument for a political project with the concentration of power in Venezuela”.

In it, Duque describes how the manipulation of the rule of law began in 1999,
when the Supreme Court recognized the legitimacy of the regulations of the
Constituent Assembly, which allowed all powers, including the Court itself to cease its activities. This exceeded the
mandate of the referendum for the Constituent Assembly.

After the new Constitution was approved a new transient regime, with no legal basis, was created, under the
argument that there was a “Constitutional vacuum”. This allowed the elimination of Congress, the naming of a new Supreme Court and the total
intervention of the judicial power
by this transient body with no legal foundation.
All of this was done by the creation of the novel concept of the
“supraconstitutionality” of the deeds of the Constituent Assembly,
which were not limited to the sanctioning of a new Constitution, but to ruling
during this “transient” regime. In fact, this “regime” was
challenged in front of the old Court, but it did not decide, so the
“new” Court was the one to ratify the validity of the
“new” regime. Thus, this allowed the Constituent Assembly to usurp all
powers given to them by the “originating constituent power” of the
people.

By virtue of these decisions, Venezuela
has two Constitutional orders, that one approved in the 1999 Constitution and
the transient regime, which has no approval, but is apparently indefinite.
According to the Court’s decision “it
can project, beyond the installation of the National Assembly“.
Incredible, but true. But there is more, the “new” (and improved?)
Court resolved the unconstitutionality of
its own existence, as well as the requirements needed to be part of it,
going as far as saying that the prerequisite of being a Full Professor of Law,
does not mean you need to have an academic career, but simply that you are a Professor
at any university, even at lower ranks.

The Court itself also approved and ratified that the National Assembly can
approve, by simple majority, the New Supreme Court Bill, extending the number
of Justices from 20 to 32, as well as the ability of the Assembly to remove or
sanction Justices by a simple majority. This was accomplished in part, by the
Court itself ratifying the validity of the new regulations of the National
Assembly, also approved by simple majority. Talk about conflict of interest!

Meanwhile, Duque states, the country and its Courts refuse to acknowledge any
of the decision by the Interamerican Human Rights Court, which has issued
hundreds of injunctions asking the Venezuelan Government to protect reporters
and others against the actions of the Government itself!

Amazingly enough, Duque cites how the National Assembly managed to reform
regulations, such as the land decree, in which the regulations contain articles
identical to those which had been annulled by the Supreme Court from the Land
Bill itself, under the argument that they were unconstitutional.

The Court, Duque points out, has ruled that basic rights, such as freedom of
expression and information are subject to the values and principles of the
State, which contradicts international jurisprudence on the matter. This has
allowed the Assembly to sanction bills which are repressive in nature and which,
according to international human rights organizations, violate the rights of freedom
of speech and the right to information.

Thus, concludes the author in agreement with the Human Rights commission of the
OAS, “there are worrisome signs of
institutional fragility such as the lack of application of the new
Constitution, the lack of independence of power, impunity in the actions of
armed groups, the tendency to confront and disqualify the opposition on the
part of the Government, the militarization of the civil service and the lack of
union rights. All of this is due to the so called “judicial activism” by the
Supreme Court and the manipulation of power by the state in order to support a
militaristic and Stalinist project.”

And they have the indecency to call themselves democrats!

This entry was posted on October 5, 2005 at 10:56 pm and is filed under Venezuela.