The International Bar Association reports on Venezuelan Justice

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, March 09, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel

VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: The International Bar Association has 2.5 million lawyer members all over the world, in some 185 countries. They sent a fact-finding team to Venezuela for about 10 days last February to evaluate the Venezuelan system of Justice. The findings of this team have just been given to the press and they could not be more damaging to the government of Hugo Chavez. In essence the team found that "the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is not a democratic State, is not under the rule of law and Human Rights are in peril..."

The fact-finding team claims that there exists a high level of impunity, that the judicial system is incapable of satisfying the need for justice of citizens, and that 75% of judges are only provisionally in their jobs, which make them specially vulnerable to political pressures.

The team also criticized the lack of clear limits between civil legal action and military action. In particular they express their deep concern about the absence of checks and balances in government, since the roles of the Attorney General, of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice and of the Ombudsman are in hands of unconditional government followers. The absence of independent action in these institutions, they claim, worsens the problems of the administration of justice.

The team observed that the model of Judicial System called for in the 1999 Constitution has not been put in place ... sentences by the Supreme Tribunal are often ignored by government while open political pressures against judges have weakened the credibility of the system.

Some of the conclusions of the report (as printed in the Venezuelan press) are:

1. "The current distribution of political power in the Venezuelan State endangers human rights. It is of great concern (to us) the close relationship between the military and the executive power. When the military are given the role of judicial police and allowed to act in areas that should be reserved to civilian authorities, the rule of law tends to weaken...",

2. "The performance of the Venezuelan State has deteriorated in relation to its international obligations concerning human rights",

3. "The team respectfully asks the Venezuelan government to return to a proper Rule of Law by complying with Constitutional precepts",

4. "Demeaning remarks about the judicial system by the Executive Power represent an abuse of  State power ... insulting its members and decisions, inviting disobedience of their sentences and promoting social struggle constitute an aggression against democracy and can lead to serious violations against human rights",

5. "The team recommended naming the members of the Moral Power (Comptroller, Attorney General and Ombudsman) in accordance with the Constitution",

6. "The demand for justice in Venezuela is far from being met. There are millions of judicial processes unfinished. The country needs 5,000 justices of the peace and has only 250."

The International Bar Association team which carried out the mission is made up of a US lawyer, professor of law at the University of Florida, the President of the Constitutional Group of the Supreme Court of Costa Rica and an expert in human rights.

In most countries of the world such a report would create a major commotion and cause many dismissals and resignation ... in the Hugo Chavez' Venezuela it will not merit much attention ... the Law and the Constitution are not priority issues of this government.

International opinion, however, will take notice of this report and will pressure hemispheric governments to protest the increasingly authoritarian Venezuelan regime. Political and social unrest will not cease in our country until this bad President is gone ... until this nightmare disappears.

Gustavo Coronel is the founder and president of Agrupacion Pro Calidad de Vida (The Pro-Quality of Life Alliance), a Caracas-based organization devoted to fighting corruption and the promotion of civic education in Latin America, primarily Venezuela. A member of the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), following nationalization of Venezuela's oil industry, Coronel has worked in the oil industry for 28 years in the United States, Holland, Indonesia, Algiers and in Venezuela. He is a Distinguished alumnus of the University of Tulsa (USA) where he was a Trustee from 1987 to 1999. Coronel led the Hydrocarbons Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in Washington DC for 5 years. The author of three books and many articles on Venezuela ("Curbing Corruption in Venezuela." Journal of Democracy, Vol. 7, No. 3, July, 1996, pp. 157-163), he is a fellow of Harvard University and a member of the Harvard faculty from 1981 to 1983.  In 1998, he was presidential election campaign manager for Henrique Salas Romer and now lives in retirement on the Caribbean island of Margarita where he runs a leading Hotel-Resort.  You may contact Gustavo Coronel at email ppcvicep@telcel.net.ve