Judges from dictatorships are executioners, they do not mete out impartial or independent justice

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) Dictatorship is that regime which by force or violence, concentrates all power onto a person or group who represses human rights and individual basic freedoms, has control of all branches of government -including the judicial system- that it turns into instruments of terror. Judges from the dictatorships of Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, are subordinated to the regime and are responsible of systematizing the violation of human rights to ensure dictators indefinitely wield power with impunity. These judges are neither impartial, nor independent, they are obsequious executioners.

The methodology of 21st Century Socialism to indefinitely wield power can be best summarized within the concept of State-terrorism which is “the utilization of illegitimate methods, the commission of crime by a government with the intent of generating fear or terror amongst the civilian population in order to reach its objectives or promote behaviors that would otherwise not occur by themselves.” Castrochavist dictatorships imprison, torture, assassinate, exile, extort, and perpetrate all types of crime that are executed, and/or covered up, by their judges, prosecutors, and their dictatorial justice system that is no more than a criminal mechanism for the violation of human rights and freedom.

Under the dictatorships in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, persecutions are conducted with the participation of the regime’s prosecutors and judges disguised with the façade of conducting investigative or judicial proceedings where there are no guarantees of legal due-process, no possibility of impartial judges, where the presumption of innocence no longer exists, and the concept of equality before the law is a fallacy. A despicable system.

With this same dictatorial justice system, political prisoners are taken and the concept of a “revolving door” consisting of releasing prisoners to imprison more, is implemented to enable dictatorships to have a sinister capital comprised by those unjustly deprived of their freedom, as currency for extortion and exchange. Exile is a direct consequence of this system of organized crime. The 1,200 political prisoners in Cuba, imprisoned following the peaceful demonstrations of 11 July of 2021, the 261 political prisoners in Venezuela, the nearly 300 political prisoners in Bolivia and the nearly 100 new political prisoners in Nicaragua, are operations executed by the dictatorships’ judges.

The role of the dictatorships’ judges covers the entire area of government and ranges from administrative, electoral, criminal, civil, commercial, all the way to constitutional. There is nothing outside of their reach of terror when going through a “legal” process in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, where the outcome of such proceedings is already decided by the regime before-hand through the mandated prevarication instructed to their operators or by the institutionalized corruption of these judges as compensation for their obsequiousness.

There are many and memorable cases in which dictators Castro and Diaz-Canel in Cuba, Chavez and Maduro in Venezuela, Morales and Arce in Bolivia, Ortega and Murillo in Nicaragua, and Correa in Ecuador, before the prosecution and despicable sentencing of members from the opposition, business owners, journalists, military, and others, publicly announced the verdicts of their obedient judges as “judicial rulings.”

Decisions made by the judiciary of dictatorships from Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua are criminal acts of the dictatorship itself, they are not legal rulings, lack any form of judging, do not have any legal consistency, violate human rights, do not respect any guarantees of a legal due-process. These decisions are rubble resulting from proven prevarication, reason why THEY ARE VOID OF LEGALITY that are applied only while the dictatorship wields power.

The dual function of dictatorships’ judges is to judicialize State-terrorism and to keep the dictator and his/her group in power with impunity. This includes the electoral simulation of holding elections under dictatorship wherein people vote but do not elect, reason why and using diverse mechanisms, they disqualify the opposition’s candidates, and qualify functional candidates, protect the regime’s criminals, imprison low and mid-level political leaders, persecute campaign managers, and create the legal conditions for the dictator to win.

Through the commission of crime, judges belonging to the organized crime that wields power, configure the State-terrorism and to be able to do that they commit more crime protected by the dictatorship’s force and publicity. In reality, these are not judges because a judge must have the academic credentials, personal values, and be impartial and independent. One such personal value is to have the courage to confront pressures from persons or groups with power who seek to pervert justice. These judges are the dictatorship’s executioners because they are miserable implementers of the orders given by the organized crime that wields power.

The latest and most current crime is against Maria Corina Machado, disqualified from being a presidential candidate by State-terrorism mechanisms and by decision of Venezuela’s dictator using the Supreme Tribunal of Justice of Venezuela. Machado’s only and damning value is that of flagrant proof of crime committed by the organized crime that has the need to indefinitely wield power in order to avoid falling onto the hands of true judges.

*Attorney & Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy.

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas