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<\/div><\/div>Courtesy Joel Dar\u00edo Altuve Pati\u00f1o personal Facebook account<\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/16072017-2.jpg\")
<\/div><\/div>Courtesy: Runrunes<\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\nIn \r\nearly 2006, the magistrates of the Republic inaugurated the judicial year with \r\nthe famous \"\u00a1Uh, ah, Ch\u00e1vez no se va!\" (\"Ch\u00e1vez won't leave!\"). Shrouded in the \r\nmajesty of the black toga of justice, they rose from their seats in the Plenary \r\nCouncil of the Supreme Court to chant the chorus that used to summon the \r\nfollowers of the Bolivarian Revolution's leader. Being present in the \r\nauditorium, which seemed an electoral act, a proud Hugo Ch\u00e1vez thanked the \r\ngesture with a resounding applause.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Venezuelan \r\nmagistrates are chavistas. It is not a surprise anymore to notice that the top \r\nof the Supreme Court of Justice is all red, but further down into the hierarchy \r\na good part of Venezuelan judges also appear directly committed to the \r\ngovernment. Their links are revealed in this investigation after the \r\ncross-reference of five databases that mix the official list of all the \r\ncountry's criminal judges with four of the records that the political bureau of \r\nthe revolution has been filtering since 1999. The conclusion: 40% of the \r\ncriminal judges are or at least have been acolytes of the government \r\nparty.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
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40% of the criminal judges are or at least have been acolytes of the government party<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n
Although \r\nthe Judicial Power has 1,125 criminal courts throughout the country, it only \r\nconfirms the names of 823 judges in charge. From these, 332 appear on at least \r\none of the lists of militants that the United Socialist Party of Venezuela \r\ncompiled in the years 2007, 2012 and 2013 or in an earlier one of the former \r\nFifth Republic Movement (MVR) headed by former President Hugo \r\nCh\u00e1vez.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Nineteen \r\nof these judges are even registered and endorsed in all the lists of chavism. \r\nParticularly outstanding in that club is the judge of the Metropolitan Area, \r\nFanny del Valle S\u00e1nchez, who imposed in 2010 a presentation regime every 20 days \r\nagainst the opposition deputy for the state of Barinas, Wilmer Azuaje, now \r\nrecently imprisoned for a political case and at that time sentenced for the \r\nfirst time by an altercation with a police officer who demanded abuse of \r\nauthority, after the parliamentarian became dissident of the \r\ngovernment.<\/p>\n\n\n
They are political judges. Their names being among those in the trenches of the PSUV confirms that in Venezuela justice is not blind<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n
Stands \r\nout also Javier Toro Ibarra, another unconditional, whose name will be riveted \r\nto the case of Araminta Gonz\u00e1lez, the young chemist who was sent to prison in \r\n2014 after the Scientific, Criminal and Forensic Investigations Corps declared \r\nto have found explosives at her residence during a raid as result of \r\nincriminating denounces made by \"cooperating patriots\".<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
They \r\nare political judges. Their names being among those in the trenches of the PSUV \r\nconfirms that in Venezuela justice is not blind. \"Even if they have been \r\ncoerced into signing up for any party\", says the lawyer Laura Louza, who has \r\nbeen warning in recent years from the non-governmental organization Access to \r\nJustice, about the lack of independence of the judicial system. \"If they were \r\nforced to join a party it\u2019s even more serious, because it portrays justice as an \r\nexecuting branch of the Government\".<\/p>\n\n
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<\/div><\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\nWorse than Afghanistan<\/h2>\n\n\n
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The \r\narticle 26 of the Constitution guarantees \"impartial\" justice, but it is even \r\nmore explicit in the article 256 about the need for judges, prosecutors and \r\nmagistrates who are not biased: \"(...) from the date of their appointment and \r\nuntil their egress they may not, except in the exercise of their vote, carry out \r\npartisan, guild, trade-union or similar political activism, or engage in private \r\nlucrative activities incompatible with their function\".<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Those \r\nin Venezuela are jurists that have revolving doors. For example, the case of \r\nEdgar Daniel Parra Barrios, who served as judge in the Judicial Circuit of the \r\nstate of M\u00e9rida after presiding the Front of Socialist Lawyers and the \r\nBolivarian Association of Lawyers. Not to mention the president of the Criminal \r\nJudicial Circuit of the state of Vargas, Jaime de Jes\u00fas Vel\u00e1squez Mart\u00ednez, who \r\nuntil 2004 was vice-minister of Legal Security of the Ch\u00e1vez \r\ngovernment.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Not \r\nsurprisingly, Venezuela ranks last in the Rule of Law Index published on a \r\nyearly basis by the World Justice Project, to measure the access to justice that \r\na common citizen finds in the courts of 113 different countries. Even behind \r\nAfghanistan and Cambodia, Bolivarian justice has been at the bottom of the world \r\nfor more than five years, according to the results of more than 100,000 surveys \r\n- applied simultaneously in all countries - that precisely measure the \r\nfunctioning of criminal justice, as well as separation of powers, \r\nanti-corruption efforts, open government and human rights among other \r\nissues.<\/p>\n\n\n
\"The doorman of a court has more stability than the presiding judge\"<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n
Without \r\ngoing too far, more than half of the Venezuelan population values ??their judges \r\nnegatively. According to 2015 Living Conditions National Survey, carried out by \r\nthe universities Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar, Cat\u00f3lica Andr\u00e9s Bello and Central de Venezuela, \r\n56% consider their work as \"very bad\". At the head of this study, Roberto \r\nBrice\u00f1o-Le\u00f3n, a researcher, points out that even worse is the idea that the \r\ncountry has about the relationship between judges and crimes: 52% link them \r\ndirectly while another 32% think they are more or less \r\nrelated.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Regardless \r\nof perceptions, reality shows these civil servants are vulnerable, subordinated \r\nto a system in which they lack autonomy. From 1,125 criminal courts in the \r\ncountry, only 273 have permanent judges, according to the data processed for \r\nthis work, presented with some inaccuracies by the Supreme Court of Justice \r\n(TSJ). That is, only one in four judges is titular, while the rest are \r\ntemporary, accidental, itinerant or substitute and may well be dismissed without \r\nany disciplinary process. \"The doorman of a court has more stability than the \r\npresiding judge\", summarizes Brice\u00f1o-Le\u00f3n.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
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<\/div><\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\nThe jurist's profile<\/h2>\n\n\n
If \r\na profile of the jurist in charge of the criminal courts was to be made, the \r\ndata indicate they are attorneys graduated mainly from the Universidad Santa \r\nMar\u00eda in Caracas and whose position was not obtained through a merit-based \r\nselection contest as established by the Constitution in the article 255. They \r\nare sympathetic to chavism and in 40% of cases they have even joined the \r\ngovernment party.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Sometimes \r\nthey even exhibit more severity in cases against supporters and leaders of the \r\nVenezuelan opposition. An example of this: Alfredo Baptista Oviedo, of the \r\nCriminal Judicial Circuit of Aragua, who is a member of the PSUV and had more \r\nleniency for his comrades, the Puente Llaguno gunmen, than with a group of young \r\npeople who last year participated in a protest against the head of state, \r\nNicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/p>\n\n\n
Judges Maikel Moreno and Marjorie Calder\u00f3n arrived at the directive board of the Supreme Court of Justice after forging their paths with rulings against emblematic political<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n
In \r\na joint judgment with two other colleagues, Baptista declared innocent and \r\nreleased four of the subjects that were recorded on video on April 11, 2002 in \r\nthe center of Caracas firing at the concentration calling for Chavez's \r\nresignation. But last year he ordered the arrest of 13 young people who \r\nparticipated in the march that the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) called on \r\nOctober 26 under the name of the \"Takeover of Venezuela\".<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
The \r\nsystem rewards the chavistas. Judges Maikel Moreno and Marjorie Calder\u00f3n \r\narrived at the directive board of the Supreme Court of Justice after forging \r\ntheir paths - precisely in the criminal courts - with rulings against emblematic \r\npolitical prisoners such as commissioner Iv\u00e1n Simonovis. The efficient ones are \r\nable to climb positions, but the system also knows how to expel and punish those \r\nwho break the mold. This is the case of judge Mar\u00eda Lourdes Afiuni, for whom the \r\nUnited Nations requested in 2010 her immediate release, as well as the \r\nreinstatement of her position as head of the 31st Control Court of Caracas, from \r\nwhich she was dismissed after issuing precautionary measures against Eligio \r\nCede\u00f1o, another political prisoner.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
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