01.11.16: Endgame

The Tribunal Supremo de Justicia‘s (TSJ) Electoral Chamber issued a ruling late this afternoon declaring the National Assembly to be in contempt of the court, and that all of the legislature’s acts and decisions are null.

The decision comes after a group of PSUV deputies presented the TSJ with a lawsuit claiming that by swearing in three opposition deputies from Amazonas states who currently have contentious injunctions placed upon them, the National Assembly sidestepped the TSJ and therefore found itself outside the law.

The TSJ decision will stand so long as the three deputies in question – Nirma Guarulla, Julio Ygarza and Romerl Guzamana (Indigenous Representative, Southern Region)  – remain at their posts. If they were to step down, the TSJ’s decision would be lifted, but the opposition would lose the all-important 2/3 majority in the legislative body.

Experts: National Assembly Not in Contempt

Constitutional experts Jose Vicente Haro and Pedro Del Pino told El Nacional earlier this week that the National Assembly is not in contempt of the TSJ, but rather that it is the TSJ which is acting outside of the law.

The lawyers point out that the case for the three MUD deputies at the centre of the controversy is simple:

• Article 187, Section 20 of the Constitution states that it is up to the National Assembly to confirm its own members, not the TSJ. In this case, the TSJ’s Electoral Chamber has placed an injunction on the three deputies despite the fact that they won the election according to the Consejo Nacional Electoral. As the winners in their respective districts, the TSJ has nothing to do with them taking their posts at the National Assembly.

• Article 200 of the Constitution states that National Assembly deputies receive parliamentary immunity the moment they are declared winners by the Consejo Nacional Electoral. As such, the three deputies in question gained parliamentary immunity on December 6. Any legal proceedings against them stemming from their election or their function as deputies must begin with a process to strip them of that immunity.

Haro said that the only way for the Electoral Chamber to step in and issue an injunction such as is the case with the three deputies is after a criminal investigation to establish if voting irregularities did indeed take place, “and that takes months”.

For Del Pino, the issue is clear:

The TSJ is trying to remove four deputies [including the PSUV one] who had parliamentary immunity from the moment they were declared winners. That is bold-faced fraud.

National Assembly To Ignore Decision

The second vice-president of the National Assembly, Simon Calzadilla, spoke out about the TSJ’s decision, and said that the legislature would continue to conduct its business as usual given what he considers to be the obvious abuse of law that the court’s decision represents. Calzadilla said:

The 112 deputies will continue to legislate. It is impossible to abide by that decision. We deputies are protected by the Constitution.

Calzadilla said that the TSJ’s decision is clearly political, and answered with the following when asked by the media what would happen once they ignored the decision:

Absolutely nothing. Unless there’s a coup d’etat and they send a battalion to break [the National Assembly] up.

National Assembly President Henry Ramos Allup joked that the PSUV “can’t get votes, but they can get court decisions”. Through Twitter, he added:

There’s no doubt that the TSJ Express is at the service of the government to annul the people’s will.

Legislature Received Amnesty Project Earlier Today

The National Assembly met today to discuss one of the pillars of the Mesa de la Unidad‘s election campaign: an amnesty project that would see political prisoners in the country, including high-profile figures like Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma, set free. The project was presented to the National Assembly by Alfredo Romero, the president of the NGO Foro Penal Venezolano (FPV).

Romero explained that the project as it was presented to the National Assembly today includes people arrested over 41 distinct events since 1999, and that it explicitly excludes individuals suspected of carrying out torture or other human rights abuses.

Gonzalo Himoib, the director of FPV, said that the law could be passed in one of two ways: through a legislative decree, or as an amnesty law. Himoib explained the difference between the two options:

Constitutionally, both options are perfectly valid. The difference is that a [legislative] decree is not subject to the regular process by which laws are formed. In other words, it can be approved after only one debate. On the other hand, an amnesty law is subject to a type of presidential control – which isn’t definitive – but could dilute the process.

Romero explained that while the amnesty law would include 27 articles, the legislative decree would only include 22, and said that the difference in articles had to do with the fact that as they are two different kinds of tools, they each contain different legal justifications within them.

Himoib stressed that either the decree or the law would not include individual names of people to be released: rather, they would include specific events that have occurred in the country during which people have been arrested and sentenced to prison. In other words, the amnesty law/decree would serve as a “blanket” to cover anyone detained for their participation in the 2014 protests, for example, regardless of the individual’s political orientation.

AN Sets Sights on Supreme Court Appointments

The National Assembly also created a special commission today to investigate the highly irregular manner in which 13 Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (TSJ) magistrates were appointed to the nation’s top court over the course of two sessions in which the PSUV supposedly vetted over 400 candidates.

Deputy Carlos Barrizbeitia will head the commission, which also includes deputies Juan Miguel Matheus, Freddy Valera, Stalin Gonzalez, Maria Gabriela Hernandez, Americo de Grazia and Juan Pablo Garcia.

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