Venezuela’s impunity mechanism dismantled at the UN

The “International fact-finding mission”, which have been taking place in Venezuela since 2014, composed of three independent experts mandated by the UN Human Rights Council in 2019, has published a report that will be debated next Friday in Geneva. it’s about him “Role of Venezuelan justice in the persecution of the opposition”, to maintain impunity “Human rights violations” in this country (1)

Throughout 212 pages he was exhumed “A detailed analysis of 183 arrests of opponents (…) supported by a “documentary review of thousands of pages of court records, requests for arrest and search warrants by prosecutors and courts, records of hearings, trials, appeals and other resources legal ”.

Moreover, the Mission interviewed 99 men, 76 women and 2 “group interviews” with “legal representatives of victims, members and former members of judicial bodies, including judges, judges and prosecutors”, and opened a space on its website to receive information from magistrates and lawyers “as long as they had practiced in Venezuela and their statements were” verifiable “. He sent 17 letters to the government to visit the country, but had no response.

“Use the standard of proof” in force at the UN to have “Reasonable grounds to believe”, the three experts, Marta Valiñas (Portugal), Francisco Cox Vial (Chile) and Patricia Tappatá Valdez (Argentina) they scrutinized the selection, discipline and dismissal of judges, judges, prosecutors and court magistrates. They considered that “at least since 1999”, the “degradation of the independence of the judiciary and the prosecution” has been observed, a process “accelerated in recent years”.

In turn, they obtained evidence that “Judges interviewed said they had regularly received threats of dismissal or pressure to resign or take early retirement. So much so that “they identified the presidents of the Criminal Justice Circuits as responsible for many of these threats for the purposes of reprisals or coercion”. An equivalent technique of “outside interference” exists to the detriment of prosecutors.

It should be added as an aggravating circumstance that the General Inspectorate of Courts, “Entity responsible for receiving and giving reasons for complaints lodged against judges in the exercise of their functions”It is headed by people who “simultaneously serve as magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice”, whose 32 main leaders “were chosen from circles closely linked to the political ideology of the ruling party”.

It should be added that in 2018, new Attorney General Tarek William Saab “summarily” dismissed 196 prosecutors, “And effectively eliminated the career of the prosecution by passing a resolution which declared” all judicial officials “in a position of trust. It would mean that “They can be appointed or dismissed at their discretion”, thus overturning “the meritocratic character” of the positions, “coming to depend on personal factors and partisan influences”.

Rafael Uzcátegui, The PROVEA coordinator said from Caracas that this UN report shows that “judges and prosecutors have denied their rights due to interference from other authorities. They are selected on a provisional basis and have violated the people’s right to justice. Became “An instrument of persecution”, commit “arbitrary detentions” and “The continuation of the practice of torture”, without the will to “punish human rights violations”, or “to investigate the chains of command”.

Founder of another Venezuelan oenege, “Caleidoscopio Humano”, Gabriela Buada Blondel, He said “that the judicial system has been an important actor, by action or omission, in the state repression against opponents of the government”. They are punished with arbitrary detention “and some condemned to death”. Also with “the kidnapping of relatives of opponents, to make arrests, a tactic of collective punishment used by the Nazis, called collective punishment by the repressors by threatening the detainees of the DGCIM detention center in Caracas ”.

Nelson Freitez, Member of the Human Rights Network of Lara State and coordinator of the chair of human rights at the Central Western University Lisandro Alvarado, he summarized that the document published by the United Nations demonstrates the intention of government to “prevent military officials from being the subject of criminal investigations.” officers who could be involved in extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detentions, acts of torture and enforced disappearances ”.

Freitez explained that the three independent experts in the service of the UN were able “to determine that the dissidents of the political regime were subjected to legal procedures in which due process was not respected, arbitrarily detained, without being authorized to communicate with their lawyers. or relatives. “. And he considered that they had gathered “relevant testimony that detained persons were presented to court with obvious physical signs of torture, which did not deserve that the judges who tried them took measures to protect their victims. integrity”.

Michelle Bachelet denounced more repression in Venezuela and called for the lifting of sanctions

Ali Daniels, The director of “Access to justice”, recognized that “there are untouchable civil servants in the judiciary. They cannot be investigated. It is not an autonomous power. Neither is impartial ”. He mentions that “in 19 cases, the dates of the court decision are after the date of the victim’s arrest,” citing what has now been discovered by the UN. He added that “this is not a temporary crackdown. It is a system of repression ”. And he underlined what was recently said by the International Criminal Court (ICC): “in Venezuela, there is no independent judicial system. They are officials who carry out orders ”.

On June 21, in fact, the ICC prosecutor’s office estimated “that there is a reasonable basis to believe that in Venezuela since at least April 2017, civil authorities, members of the armed forces and individuals pro governments have committed crimes of imprisonment or other serious deprivation of physical liberty, torture, sexual violence and persecution against any identifiable group or community for political reasons ”, following complaints received from victims. (2)

The ICC has singled out “members of the security forces allegedly responsible for the physical commission” of such crimes, citing the Bolivarian National Police (PNB), the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN), the General Directorate of Counterintelligence military (DGCIM). ), the Special Actions Forces (FAES), the Scientific, Criminal and Criminal Investigations Corps (CICPC), the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB), the Command to Combat Extortion and Kidnapping (CONAS) and “certain other units of the National Police ”.

The ICC argued with regard to “the assessment of authenticity in potentially relevant domestic proceedings”, that “the authorities are unwilling to actually investigate and / or prosecute these cases. This is due to the fact that national procedures have been initiated or national decisions have been adopted in order to release people from their criminal responsibility ”, highlighting his interlocutor, the aforementioned prosecutor Tarek William Saab.

Also in accordance with the ICC, such proceedings “were not conducted in an independent or impartial manner”, that is, “in a manner inconsistent with the intention to bring the person in question to justice” . Therefore, it is the result of “the lack of independence and impartiality of the judiciary, as well as the efforts to protect perpetrators of criminal justice, as factors relevant to establishing a state policy aimed at s ‘attack the civilian population’.

Once the complementarity phase has been exhausted, given the failure noted in the exchange of information between The Hague and Caracas, the ICC prosecutor is in a position to request the opening of the investigation phase, before the ” Pre-Trial Chamber ”. However, Venezuela could then propose that the cases be tried in its country, a prospect that the Court would presumably have to reject because of the evidence at its disposal, from that gathered in Geneva by the UN Fact-Finding Mission, and credibility questioned. of the government of Nicolás Maduro.

* In Geneva, Juan Gasparini

(1) Detailed Report and Findings of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, 09/16/2021.

(2) Decision of the ICC Prosecutor’s Office of 06/21/2021, made public on 08/10/2021.