Welcome to 2019! The year has just started and it is clear that, as it did at the end of the previous year, the first “D-Day” that the opposition has chosen is January 10. In the wait, we have been bombarded with statements, positions of academics and threats. Therefore, it is a duty for all Venezuelans and friends of Venezuela to take the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic and get some fundamental notions. This, of course, after locating us in the big lines of what is happening.
To refer to the context in which this January 10th takes place, we have to consider that in Venezuela the 1999 Constitution still exists, which provides for a presidential system, endowed with a constitutional maximum interpreter which the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) is responsible of. Contrary to everything they have tried, Nicolás Maduro Moros managed to conclude the constitutional period initiated by Commander Hugo Chávez and that the National Assembly of the opposition majority is in contempt since 2016. Similarly, at least since 2015, we have experienced a displacement of politics and its passions towards a context in which clearly the enemies of Nicolás Maduro’s government operate from abroad and internally; at most, there are those who try adventures that until now have not achieved their purposes.
For all this, it is necessary to address four fundamental keys that shape the swearing in of President Nicolás Maduro on January 10.
1. The presidential legitimacy of Maduro
Lets start from the simplest notion of democracy, so we can understand that this is the political system where power is exercised by the people. This notion, which is nothing more than a grammatical approximation, is not exempt from complications and historical particularities.
For Venezuelans, democracy does not end with calling elections because since 1999 we live in a participatory and protagonist democracy, considerably its approach is far from the Constitution of 1961 and many other foreign [representative democracy] forms.
Our concept of sovereignty in Article 5 of the Magna Carta states that “sovereignty resides intransferiblemente in the people, who exercise directly in the manner provided in this Constitution and the law, and indirectly by suffrage, by the organs that they form the Public Power, the organs of the State emanate from popular sovereignty and to it they are subject.” At the same time, it states that, “the election of the President of the Republic shall be by universal, direct and secret vote, in accordance with the law, and the candidate who obtained the majority of valid votes shall be proclaimed elected.”
This happened on May 20, 2018, where most of the valid votes favored the candidate Nicolás Maduro. It should be noted that there is no obligation in this forecast for a percentage of mandatory electoral participation or that there is no consideration that opens the determination of who is the candidate elected to any other institution than the electoral authority.
Therefore, as we previously argued, “on January 10 nobody begins to be or ceases to be President, what happens is the act in which one government ends and another government begins.” The quality of President is obtained at the polls and it certifies with the proclamation made by the electoral authority, therefore, that act can not cause any person to whom the electoral quality is attributed to the President, lose it “. Being the same person who will exercise the period that begins, there is an administrative continuity in the government.
2. The reason for the occurrence
Unlike what happened in Venezuela in January 2013, at present there is no cause that limits President Nicolás Maduro to be sworn in as provided in Article 231 of the Constitution. This time the problem is in the National Assembly, which is the first body constitutionally designated to receive the oath.
From a legal point of view, we find the situation of contempt of the National Assembly that deserves us to remember to understand what is happening in Venezuela.
On December 6, 2015, in Venezuela, parliamentary elections were held, which concluded with the change of the majority of the Parliament that would rest for the first time since the beginning of Chavismo at the hands of the opposition. However, once the elections are held, there is a challenge to the election of three citizens before the Electoral Chamber, thus initiating a judicial conflict that initially was recognized by the National Assembly. Certainly, we will remember that on January 5 there was a hesitant attitude of admitting to form the quorum without these three citizens, but this was then forgotten. Then the conflict led to questioning the election of the Magistrates and Magistrates to the TSJ that had been carried out at the last moment by the outgoing National Assembly.
If this questioning of magistrates or magistrates could arise, it is to be noted that the National Assembly and the jurists who accompany it decided instead of requesting the nullity of a previous parliamentary act, insisting that this was invalid and giving an attribution that does not exist in the Constitution of the Republic or in the Internal Rules and Debates of the National Assembly, declaring by internal resolutions that they did not recognize this Supreme Court.
Consequently, contempt of the TSJ, described by Dr. Hermann Escarrá, began as a very serious legal problem because it compromised the State’s ability to carry out important legal acts. For example, adopt the National Budget, carry out the political control of the authorities and officials, legislate on the urgent matters for the country, etc. However, with the passage of time it has become a de facto annulment of that power that has ended up dictating contradictory acts and without any legal force. To the point that he has dismissed and tried the President of the Republic, without his actions having any effect.
3. The swearing in before the Supreme Court of Justice
The Constitution of the Republic, in the same article that orders the President-elect to appear before the National Assembly to take an oath, provides that if there is a supervening motive, he must proceed to take an oath before the Supreme Court. It is a diaphanous norm in the “Plan B” approach established by the President. It is important in this that we take into account that the conflict between powers and crises, are assumptions that were provided for in the Constitution and that it is a national duty to defend that its resolution is made within the regulations, but above all within the framework of respect of our independence.
The norm that establishes it is article 231 and the way in which it says it is direct: “If for any reason the President of the Republic could not take possession before the National Assembly, he will do it before the Supreme Court of Justice.”
As a personal criterion in previous notes, it was considered advisable that the Constitutional Chamber pronounce itself in order to clarify whether the contempt could be considered a supervening motive that prevented the President from attending the National Assembly. What is observed has not happened and now becomes unnecessary, since the current Board of Directors of Parliament has clearly stated that this body is not in a position to receive the President.
4. The international orchestra
There are 194 countries in the world, but the Lima Group, officially formed by 14 countries, forms the center of the operation against the inauguration of Nicolás Maduro Moros. That is, they lead the hostile actions against Venezuela 7.21% of the countries of the world, and these are the ones who have declared that they will not give validity to the oath that the President lends.
In this regard, it is true that these countries have an echo in other nations, especially in the European Community, which is curiously in solidarity with these countries and that it is odious to deal numerically with States. However, it is also true that it was one or all of the other countries. This would not be relevant when Venezuela declares itself irrevocably free and independent.
Luis Britto García, in this regard, satirized questioning how important it would be for a group of 14 officials to meet to determine who should receive the Nobel Peace Prize or the Miss Universe crown. For as long as they are not the committees that give those acknowledgments, it does not matter because these people do not have the competence to determine those issues. Just as they do not have it to determine who is President of Venezuela, which is an issue that resides intransferiblemente in the people of Venezuela.
What will happen diplomatically in Venezuela does not have much to do with what happens on January 10, because we must remember that since before the elections of May 20, these countries and some others had declared that they would not recognize to the government that was elected.
Now, the recent statement issued by the Lima Group deserves to be careful because it is a direct shot at the notion of sovereignty. Not only because it orders to ignore the will of the Venezuelans electorally expressed, or because it orders “transfer” power to the National Assembly which is impossible while in Venezuela the sovereignty is non-transferable and the people voted for Nicolás Maduro Moros, but because it revives a conflict that has discreetly escalated: the dispute with Guyana over the territory of Esequibo.
This should alert us because until now some parts of the opposition have declared themselves against the legal actions that, under the auspices of ExxonMobil, are advanced with the flag of Guyana, for which, dawn a 2019 with sectors that have redoubled his surrender.
This document, by including this, seeks to pulverize all the triumphs of the deed of Independence, which is submitted from Colombia to the lackey of revisionism, because a State does not exist if it does not have sovereignty. Well that is the state of the territories that remain colonies.
Source URL: Mision Verdad
Translated by JRE / AR
