By now it has become very clear, after the various interpretations of prominent Venezuelan jurists, that the disqualifications to run for elected office, carried out by institutions controlled by the regime of Nicolás Maduro Moros, against opposition political leaders are irritating and illegal, and are the product of what we have already repeated ad nauseam: we are in a tyranny from which we can expect any measure against its detractors in order to remain in power.
However, that is what stands out on the surface when, deep down, what we really have to worry about is why politics still overrides justice and is used, to a greater or lesser extent, as a tool to subjugate political enemies. It is not strange then that a tyranny applies such a restriction without contemplation in a country whose first amendment to the first Constitution in democracy (1961), was made in 1973 with the purpose of disqualifying the dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez to prevent him from being elected President of the Republic or from holding political representation positions in the Congress. It is hardly surprising that this rusty knife is still in the Venezuelan political arsenal.
Indeed, the Venezuelan political moment of the time dictated that it was very possible that the ex-dictator Perez Jimenez, would dispute the status quo of Venezuelan politics, the Presidency of the Republic, despite all the crimes committed in the 10 years of the Perez Jimenez dictatorship, which is why legislation was passed to close the way to that possibility: Constitution of 1961, Amendment No. 1, Article 1: "They may not be elected President of the Republic, Senator or Deputy to Congress, nor Magistrate of the Supreme Court of Justice, those who have been convicted by a final sentence, issued by the Supreme Court of Justice, who have been convicted by a final sentence, dictated by Ordinary Courts, to a prison sentence of more than three years, for crimes committed in the performance of public functions...". It could be said that the above is a classic example of politics building the paths of justice in a case that they considered "fair" and on which there was no precedent.
At present "...the right to be elected in Venezuela is a political right that can only be restricted in accordance with the 1999 Constitution and the American Convention on Human Rights, through a judicial sentence issued in a criminal proceeding in accordance with the rules of the Organic Code of Criminal Procedure, when a judge imposes on a convicted person the penalty of political disqualification, which is always an accessory penalty to the main penalty of imprisonment or imprisonment" (see in Spanish, The political right of citizens to be elected to positions of popular representation and the scope of its judicial exclusion in a democratic regime, Allan R. Brewer-Carias, 2011, in https://allanbrewercarias.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/703.-796-.-Brewer.-INHABILITACI%C3%93N-POL%C3%8DTICA-EN-LA-LOCGR-Y-VIOLACI%C3%93N-DE-LA-CONVENCI%C3%93N-AMERICANA-DDHH.-marzo-2011.pdf).
According to this prominent jurist - and which is also the general opinion of experts in the field - political disqualification is the result of a sentence of a Court as an accessory penalty to a prison or jail sentence. In other words, it is not a decision that comes from the desk of an official, but from a court of justice.
But in Venezuela there have been cases where politics has prevented the turning of the wheel of justice, allowing people who should have been disqualified from holding public office for having committed crimes to reach positions that gave them an open door to destroy the country. In the absence of political disqualifications that should have been there as a matter of principle, the country has paid the unfortunate consequences of the fact that politics has prevailed over justice. Such is the case of Hugo Chávez Frías and all the officers acquitted for the military uprising of February 4, 1992.
"The dismissal is the anticipated termination of a criminal proceeding in which there has not yet been a sentence and which is declared concluded for reasons of general interest. .... The dismissal applied in the case at hand finds its legal basis in article 54, numeral 3 of the Code of Military Justice, which attributes to the President of the Republic the power to "order the dismissal of military trials, when he deems it convenient, at any stage of the case" (see El sobreseimiento de Chávez, Juan José Caldera, 2007, in https://rafaelcaldera.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/EL_SOBRESEIMIENTO_DE_CHAVEZ-Juan-Jos%C3%A9-Caldera.pdf
According to former President Rafael Caldera himself, quoted by J.J. Caldera, in an interview made on June 2, 2003, "...Chávez's freedom was a consequence of the decision made with all the participants of the February 4th and November 27th uprisings.... those dismissals began to be issued during the time of President Perez himself, who was the President in Miraflores when the uprising occurred; they continued during the Government of President Velasquez and when I took office almost all, if not all, the participants of the action had been released... It would be contrary to all legal norms if the trial of the other officers had been dismissed and Chavez had been kept in jail for fear that he might become President. A fear that no one shared at that time...".
But these words of former President Caldera reveal that Chavez is dismissed for political reasons, applied since the times of then President Carlos Andres Perez, which may or may not be shared by some, but they are based on subordinating politics to justice, because Hugo Chavez Frias and his seditious in justice should continue to be prosecuted, sentenced, imprisoned and disqualified.
It is clear that since there was no trial due to the application of a dismissal, there could not be a condemnatory sentence, which in the case of Chávez was completely expected, since he had publicly confessed the responsibility of being the leader of that insurrection with deaths included, on February 4, 1992. In justice, Chávez should have been condemned, but politics suspended the trial that would turn him into the first disqualified person in all this history of political disqualifications. But not disqualified by the decision of a politician or an official, but by the decision of a Military Tribunal.
The recent declarations of the Emeritus Magistrate of the Supreme Court of Justice, Dr. Blanca Rosa Mármol de León, that "Chavez was born disqualified, he carried out a coup d'état and democracy forgave him", could not be more accurate (see in Spanish Chávez nació inhabilitado, Entrevista a Blanca Rosa Mármol de León, en https://eltiempove.com/blanca-marmol-de-leon-chavez-nacio-inhabilitado-dio-un-golpe-de-estado-y-la-democracia-lo-perdono/), because that is what happened, but politics prevented justice from doing its job, with the consequences that we are all suffering, and the democrats, believing that this would remain there, because they still think that politics should be above justice, we all Venezuelans ended up paying a very high price with a tragedy that subdues us all.
What more proof do Venezuelans need to see, touch and feel in their own flesh in order to understand once and for all that a judicial system mediatized by politics brings misery, hunger and corruption, but above all injustice? That the first thing we have to achieve after this tragedy is to guarantee through a profound revision of the institutionalism of the country, and that there is a true independence of the Judicial Power, so that NOBODY, not even the President of the Republic, can get his hands on the course of justice. And this can only be achieved by convening the Constituent Assembly for the Refounding of the Nation. In this way, any future political disqualification will be resolved by itself, because we will finally guarantee to live in a State of Law. For suffering this injustice, I hope this will be understood by those who intend to replace the tyranny in the near future, after more than 50 years of political disqualifications...
Caracas, August 7, 2023
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