Archbishop Porras says legal system has been held hostage

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, February 23, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Venezuelan Episcopal Conference (CEV) president Monsignor Baltazar Porras says Venezuela’s legal organs have been taken hostage to serve very concrete instances. Obviously referring to the arrest of leading opposition figure, Carlos Fernandez, Porras maintains that Venezuela’s institutionality is deteriorating rapidly and the government is becoming more arbitrary in legal procedures.

• Porras accuses the Attorney General and Ombudsman's Offices of covering up for the government.

The prelate attacks the government for rushing on this case, despite the accumulation of piles of pending cases that have been gathjering dust.

"The current climate in Venezuela will deepen the conflict and the separation of political actors … democracy cannot be built excluding others … what it’s doing is speeding up the process of institutional deterioration.”

The Archbishop questions the President’s language, which, he insists, seeks confrontation and warns that the arrest has turned the government-opposition negotiating non-aggression pact into a cartoon.