There is nothing more cruel and perverse than locking someone in a labyrinth. And even more so if that labyrinth has a hidden beast that eats human flesh, as in one of the most famous myths of Greek mythology, the Labyrinth of Crete that contained the Minotaur, a kind of beast with the body of a man and the head of a bull. Venezuela has been turned into a labyrinth with a beast inside, where those who remain sooner or later become victims of the beast-regime that roams freely in this trap with no way out.
And just like in that mythological labyrinth, we Venezuelans go round and round the same corridors searching fruitlessly for the exit, and the beast that knows them always finds us. The saddest part of the story is that those who should guide the search to get out of it propose the same places, the same corridors, confused as the rest, with the result known by all of us of a triumphant and eternalized beast that always finds us and eats us in its endless game. Not a new idea, not a different way of how to face the beast. And the incredible thing is that anyone who breaks out of this vicious circle of the same bad ideas is rejected without being heard. It is part of the same confusion and weariness.
The Venezuelan labyrinth is special. Its construction began with the constituent proposal of a coup candidate that Venezuelans bought without knowing what it was about and whose confusion has lasted until today. Even those of us who dedicated ourselves to study this subject in depth fell into the trap of the beast.
We begin with a judgment of January 19, 1999 of the former Supreme Court of Justice, which with the statement of Magistrate Humberto La Roche, authorized a Consultation for the call of a Constituent Assembly, in the following terms: "...the opinion of the electoral body may be consulted on any decision of special national transcendence other than those expressly excluded by the Organic Law of Suffrage and Political Participation itself in its article 185, including that related to the call of a Constituent Assembly". This historic sentence changed the life of Venezuelans.
And on what grounds did the highest court of the country authorize the convocation of a Constituent Assembly, whose main purpose is to create a new Constitution? Under the principle set forth in the sentence, which states that it is the people who "...always retain sovereignty since, although they can exercise it through their representatives, they can also assert their will before the State by themselves. Undoubtedly, whoever possesses a power and can exercise it by delegating it, does not exhaust his power, especially when it is original, to the point that the Constitution itself recognizes it. Hence, the holder of the power (sovereignty) implicitly has the power to assert it on aspects for which it has not been delegated". This is indisputable. Popular sovereignty is above any consideration, and if it wishes to modify the bases of the established Social Contract, it can perfectly well do so.
In this way, the newly elected coup leader was able to change the fundamental bases of the country with the help of a people deceived in an electoral campaign that blamed everything bad that was happening to us on the 1961 Constitution. But it did not end there. The Constituent Assembly included in its text the possibility that the people could call for a new Constituent Assembly, establishing three articles specifically for such a call. Articles 347, 348 and 349 set rules for a new Constituent Assembly. And there was the catch! It seemed to be a broad consideration but it was not. From then on, the rules were conditioned to what the beast-regime decided in electoral matters. Those rules work well but in a democracy, not in a regime that controls all branches of public power.
And we fell into that trap, seeking to enforce rules to an intrinsically authoritarian power. Thus, to summon that supra-constituent power to bend the authoritarianism of the beast-regime is little less than impossible. It seemed that we ourselves imposed the cage where we locked ourselves up and threw away the key.
But the Constituent Power DOES NOT HAVE TO BE IN THE CONSTITUTION IN ORDER TO EXERCISE IT. In fact, it is the citizens who decide how to do it because IT IS A HUMAN RIGHT. Let's see it in the words of Dr. José Vicente Haro, constitutional lawyer, in an interview conducted in February 2014:
"Indeed (the Constituent Assembly) may be in a Constitution or it may not be. It is in ours, but it was not in the 1961 Constitution..... Why do I say it may not be? Because it IS A HUMAN RIGHT, it is a right inherent to the human person, that is, it is above the same constitutional letter. It is something supra-constitutional. It is like Human Rights. There are Human Rights that are not in the Constitution, for example the issue in Europe and the United States that is in full debate is the right to marriage between people of the same sex and it is being recognized in several countries as a Human Right... With the Constituent it is the same. It was recognized in France, it was not established in the monarchic French Constitution, it did not establish it but it was recognized as an inherent right of the French, and as part of their Sovereignty..... In the same way it happened with the Americans. It was not in the constitutions of the American Confederacy but they recognized it as a right inherent to their Sovereignty and to them as citizens, as people. So the Constituent Assembly, the Constituent Power is something that may or may not be in the Constitution. If it is in the Constitution, okay, it can be. If it's not in the Constitution that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and it can't be manifested and presented, and it can't be expressed." (see in Spanish Constituyente de Calle, video interview to Dr. José Vicente Haro, in https://youtu.be/CoygzadEA1g).
After this extensive explanation, Venezuelans realize the deception. It would seem that the Constituent Assembly, which is expressed in the three constitutional articles mentioned above, IS THE ONLY ONE we can wield. It is not. Chávez applied to us that because we are a sovereign people, we could call a Constituent Assembly and change the 1961 Constitution, which was not established, but that we could not do so if we wanted to change the current one, but under the rules and terms imposed by the 1999 Constitution. And on account of what? We are still a sovereign people, aren't we? And that, as Dr. Haro says in his exposition, was what the French and the Americans did. And they did it, the former by summoning the Third Estate, the French plebs, proposed by the Abbé Enmanuelle J. Sieyès. (see in Spanish El abate Sieyès y la Revolución francesa, in https://www.elhistoriador.com.ar/el-abate-sieyes-y-la-revolucion-francesa/ and ¿Qué es el Tercer Estado? de Enmanuelle J. Sieyès, in https://borisbarriosgonzalez.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/sieyes-que-es-el-tercer-estado.pdf) and the second summoning delegates from the American Confederacy to a Constitutional Convention to draw up the Constitution of the United States. (see in Spanish La convención constitucional, Gobierno de los EEUU, in https://static.america.gov/uploads/sites/8/2016/04/The-Constitutional-Convention_Spanish_508.pdf).
In fact, as of now, we could call, as suggested by Dr. Jose Vicente Haro, a Constitutional Convention, as the Americans did in 1787, and use that same name which expresses in all its extension what is being pursued, composed of delegates from each one of the States of Venezuela under the rules we decide, not those decided by Chavez in the 1999 Constitution. No one in the International Community and even less the United States nor the European Union could disagree with a solution of this type for Venezuela, because their own States were born under that same formula. And that is precisely the problem before us, the institutional construction from the hands of the legitimate delegates of the Venezuelan people, of a State destroyed to its foundations.
Now, in August 2013, my esteemed professor and friend, Agustín Blanco Muñoz, of the Pío Tamayo Chair of the UCV, introduced the concept of "Street Constituent", trying to mean the necessary popular participation that this instrument must have, as far as possible from the corrupt institutionality of the regime through its CNE. , trying to signify the necessary popular participation that this instrument must have, as far away as possible from the corrupt institutionality of the regime through its CNE, transferring its execution to the organized civil society: "And so, at a given moment the peaceful street struggle-constituent will be summoned, supported and executed by thousands of actors acting in the form of a network of movements that maintain their autonomy in the midst of a diversity of thought but with a common purpose: to make a new history. Seen in this way, the Original Constituent will be promoted and executed from the street. Without signatures or CNE. The social-people-collective force will be the driving force of other times. It will not go for the circumstantial but for the transcendent. Its results will not be for "already" but for another history". (see in Spanish ¿Cómo organizar la Constituyente-calle? por Agustín Blanco Muñoz, en http://constituyevenezuela.blogspot.com/2013/08/como-organizar-la-constituyente-calle.html).
Later on, this concept is translated into constitutional terms by Dr. José Vicente Haro, differentiating this expression from what was defined in the 1999 Constitution: "I believe it is important to differentiate .... what is the difference between a street Constituent and a Constituent as provided for in the Constitution. The Constituent foreseen in the 1999 Constitution is a Constituent that is subject to certain rules of Convocation, including certain rules of initiative,...... This is the Constituent established in the Constitution. But there is a rule regarding the constituent power, and this is the key, and it is that the Constituent Power of today cannot bind, cannot condition the Constituent Power of tomorrow. What do I mean? The Constituent Power of 1999, established in the 1999 Constitution, cannot bind, cannot condition the Constituent Power of today. What does this mean? That those requirements established in the Constitution must not necessarily be complied with if we are talking about a Constituent of the street..... With respect to what is a street Constituent, I believe that the first thing to be clear about is that the street Constituent is not tied to the rules nor to the premises established in the 1999 Constitution, and therefore it should not go through the CNE, it is not necessary to go through the CNE, and it is a Constituent which, just as the French people did, just as the American people did, and just as many other peoples did, it can effectively be activated in the street with the participation of the citizens? As the French did, they themselves organized an electoral body, represented by the citizens, and established some rules and parameters for the voting.... " (emphasis added) (see José Vicente Haro, in the video referenced above).
If we enforce this doctrinal principle, the Constituent Power that built this state of affairs in the country CANNOT BIND OR CONDITION the Constituent Power that we convene today, with other rules and other conditions. In the very serious situation in which the country finds itself, completely de-institutionalized and without any legitimate political representation, looking for the exits to this labyrinth built for a beast to devour us; and in view of the unequivocal decision of the Venezuelan people to end the regime of Nicolás Maduro Moros in a Popular Consultation, where 6.4 million Venezuelans expressed their mandate to leave, we have the right to convene without further consultations a Constitutional Convention, with rules proposed by civil society, and with delegates from all corners of the country and from all political tendencies, to decide the future of Venezuela.
As you will see, none of the above is an invention of this writer, who only does not refer to the above mentioned figure as Constituent Assembly, precisely to differentiate it from the deception set up in the 1999 Constitution, which has its own rules of convocation, although in essence both have the same purpose: "to transform the State, create a new legal system and draft a new Constitution". These are the elections that we must carry out with the help of the International Community. This election of delegates could become the solution to the Venezuelan problem, just as Ariadne's Thread was the solution to the Labyrinth of Crete and the Constitutional Convention could become the definitive sword to put an end to the Minotaur...
Caracas, June 6, 2021
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