Last week, the Mesa de la Unidad Democratica published a document in which it outlined its vision for the National Assembly session starting on January 5, 2016. The original document can be found here in Spanish.
Below, my translation of the MUD’s legislative proposals.
LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS
This document is a summary of the general contents of the laws and legislative measures that a new National Assembly with an opposition majority can enact to move towards a better quality of life without delay.
1. Regulations
This will consist in debating and approving the following legal projects or reforms of existing laws in the following areas:
1. Stock/Supply
The goal is to enact and/or reform laws that make the distribution of essential products easier, and reform or revoke laws that hinder the circulation of goods, as are the Agricultural Security Law and the Fair Prices Law. The most relevant issues to consider are:
Stock Law
Its objective will be to eliminate barriers and facilitate paperwork that are currently an obstacle to the circulation of goods. [Examples are] mobilization guides, non-production certificates, registry renewals and mechanisms for restricted sales. Similarly, [this law] will temporarily establish incentives for the import of goods such as food, medicine and personal hygiene products, including import duty exemptions, [taxes] on imports and the assignment of foreign currency for priority goods.
Production Increase Framework Law
This law is a general instrument that affords investors judicial security so that they will invest their capital with ease and swiftness in strategic productive areas. This law would order the express assignment of licenses and permits; it would eliminate or substantially reduce the rates that [i][pechan? this might be a typo][/i] the increase in capital of corporations, as well as other certificates such as the Packaged Products Code, the acquisition of which will be expedited through a provisional number.
At the same time, all of the norms that call for punitive risk via incarceration to company administrators or that place limits on foreign investment would be abolished. Finally, the law would render without effect decrees from public utilities that place risk on the property of active private enterprise, and would order a review of all laws that establish open discretionary powers to expropriate, intervene or occupy companies.
Expropriation Reversal Law
Through this law, we intend to review expropriations and establish conditions and guarantees so that investors whose companies have been expropriated or interfered with can re-activate them quickly. To do this, we could establish fiscal incentives and compensation agreements in the medium-term. The idea is to favour the re-activation of companies in essential fields such as food, medicine, and personal hygiene and home cleaning products.
2. Consumer Protection
After enacting the first Fair Prices Law, the system of consumer protection that existed in several previous laws was abandoned. Currently, consumer rights are only found in the Fair Prices Law. Given this fact, it is important to draft a separate law on this issue:
Consumer Protection and Education Law
Its objective would be to develop consumer rights in the areas that are today outside the scope of any regulation. For example, issues surrounding incomplete budgets, performance guarantees, product returns and reimbursements for deceitful sales. This law could also eliminate the regulations that require obtaining authorization to hold sales and other promotions that ultimately benefit consumers.
3. Citizen Security
Personal security is one of the biggest problems facing citizens on a daily basis in Venezuela, especially those who inhabit the poorest areas. This is perhaps one of the main reasons for the exodus of talented and young people from every social bracket. The solution to this problem is very complicated and involves different areas including prevention, improvements to working conditions for police officers, and even a deep overhaul of the judicial system. However, it would be possibly to draft the following law immeditately:
Police Coordination Law
The goal of this law would be to strengthen municipal and state police forces so that they can coordinate with the National Police. In other words, this is decentralizing security again, as laid out by the Constitution, in order to avoid that the nationalization of police forces via the Law for the National Police continue to render the police bodies closest to the citizen almost useless. This law would also attempt to develop police resources in order to give regional police forces greater operational capacity.
4. Salaries
In the face of a highly inflationary economy, it is important to promote a tool that allows salaries to be adjusted according to the value of goods and services, thereby avoiding the impoverishment of those living on salaries. The tool to do this would be:
Salary Protection and Social Borrowing Law
In order to do this, the base of employment benefits excluded from loan systems should be expanded to generate more frequent access to higher incomes. This would include a reform of the way employment loans work, along with vacation pay and social loans so that workers can access these incomes with anticipation without making the already compromised situation of the workers any worse.
5. Pensions
The situation in which the seniors live is unfortunate, and in the face of a highly inflationary economy it is necessary to protect those who are not of productive age and require the state’s help to survive. To do that, we will draft:
Universal Pension Law
The objective would be to create a lifetime benefit to all seniors, including those that due to the nature of their work or for any other reason did not contribute to social security, or have done so only partially. This benefit should be constantly revised to make sure that it is in agreement with remunerations from active workers.
6. Public Services
The precarious state of social services becomes more evident each day, especially when it comes to drinking water, electricity, public transportation, telecommunications, as well as all of the infrastructure associated with these. The following tool can be drafted to deal with this issue urgently:
Decentralization and Strategic Partnerships to Improve Public Services Law
Its objective would be to supress the monopolies that the state has created when it comes to providing social services to their detriment, allowing states and municipalities to assume control of them properly. This could include strategic partnerships with mixed or private enterprises through the granting of concessions.
When it comes to improving infrastructure, including roads, aqueducts, garbage collection, ports and airports, the law that could be drafted is the following:
Public-Private Partnerships for the Development of Public Works
This law would allow private industries partnered with the state to develop public works of grade scope and high levels of investment through multilateral financing which would be repaid through the granting of concessions. This type of initiative has been successful in many parts of the world, and specially in Latin America where there aren’t enough resources to finance these expensive works.
Public and Community Media Law
This law would be enacted with the goal of ending the media hegemony of any political party. This law would create media channels to guarantee information balance and the independence of those in charge of the administration of state and community media channels.
7. Homes
In order to complement the Mision Vivienda initiative, and to make it easier for citizens to acquire property rights of dignified homes, it would be possible to enact:
Home Development Drive Law
This law would clarify the status of homes that have already been granted as well as those that will be granted in the future, so that they can have complete ownership over them pending the verification, granting and occupation of the home. At the same time, the law would institutionalize the granting of property deeds of real estate build on municipal lands. Finally, this law would include the idea of “seed homes”, which would allow a tenant to expand a minimalistic structure progressively through expansion modules. In order to do this, we would count on the cooperation of private industry through credits for construction at favourable rates, which would avoid funds that are today facilitated through the Private Banks Law to pass through the inefficient hands of the state, generating corruption.
Moreover, it is very important to review legislation regarding home leases, which has attempted to protect tenants who are unable to find homes for rent, which affects young families who cannot buy a home. In order to do this, we could enact:
Tenancy Encouragement Law
The objective would be to establish reasonable parameters to avoid abuses when it comes to increases in lease rates, but at the same time allowing defaulting tenants or those who use rented spaces improperly to be evicted to the benefit of others who need that home. To do this, a maximum allowable time for the landowner to lease the property again to a new tenant would be implemented.
8. Corruption
The Republic has been severely affected by corruption which has resulted in criminal acts by specific elected officials. In order to try to reverse the damage to the Republic and its citizens, the following law would be enacted:
Repatriation of Corrupt Capital Law
This law would affect the areas of corruption and the economy. Its objective would be to establish international investigative mechanisms to obtain information as well as cooperation measures that would allow us to track capital involved in crimes against the Republic, wit the end goal of seizing and repatriating them pending orders from Venezuelan tribunals.
Public Contract Process Transparency Law
With the goal of increasing efficiency in the way that public contracts are awarded, and at a time when we need to rebuild national infrastructure, the National Assembly would enact a law that would establish public consultations as a general rule for awarding contracts as well as other mechanisms only in exception cases, eliminating the possibility of granting direct contracts and substituting it with other, more transparent mechanisms. At the same time, we would establish the use of control and administration mechanisms for public contracts with the goal of ensuring strict adherence to contracts, and the establishment of responsibilities for public works inspectors.
9. Political Prisoners
It is imperative that we secure the release of political prisoners with the goal of creating conditions of national peace and understanding. In order to do this, we propose the creation of:
General Amnesty Law
Its objective would be to award general and total amnesty to all citizens who were under criminal investigation, administrative, disciplinary or police custody, and administrative or penal proceedings stemming from political protests and voicing dissent. This amnesty would also signal the end of political bans and related procedures involving the removal of parliamentary immunity.
Judiciary Independence Guarantee Law
Through this law, the National Assembly would design a mechanism that adheres to the Constitution to assign judges, with the goal of ending provisional appointments for Venezuelan judges and turning the most capable legal professionals into true judges. This law would also establish the means by which to grant judicial officials proper salaries according to the important function that is the administration of justice, as well as measures relating to social security, health and mechanisms for the acquisition of dignified homes.
INVESTIGATIVE PROPOSALS
This would involve initiating investigations as granted by the Constitution in order to create a public debate around issues that the National Assembly has refused to talk about or investigate. The most important cases could be:
- The formal questioning of the Minister of Nutrition and Agricultural Security over the levels of food scarcity and the production levels of farms and estates expropriated or interfered with by the state.
- The formal questioning of the President of PEDEVAL and MERCAL over the situation of shortages and the distribution of basic necessities.
- The formal questioning of the President of CENCOEX over the list of companies that have received foreign currency at the lowest exchange rates. The formal questioning of former minister and former presidents of finance and CADIVI over the granting of foreign currency to companies and their fulfilment of imports and distribution of imported products.
- The formal questioning of the Minister of Health and the President of IVSS over the levels of medical stock, and the situation regarding official imports. Also, issues surrounding the infrastructure of healthcare, doctor salaries and public healthcare.
- The formal questioning of the Attorney General of the Public Ministry and the Comptroller General of the Republic over cases of corruption that have not been investigated by the Public Ministry, or investigated and then abandoned without resolution.
- The formal questioning of the Ministry of the Interior, Justice and Peace and the chiefs of security services (National Bolivarian Police, CICPC and the National Guard) over measures and security strategies, along with cases involving repression and human rights violations.
- The formal questioning of the President of the Venezuelan Central Bank over the hiding of economic figures and of monetary policies.
- The formal questioning of the People’s Defender over cases of human rights violations that were not investigated, or which were investigated but were later left open and in which no actions were taken.
- The formal questioning of the General Procurator of the Republic over the defense of international investment arbitration, the processes for the designation of international lawyer’s signatures and honourary treaties.
- The formal questioning of the President of PDVSA over the current state of oil production.
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