Legislatives of dictatorships are subordinated creators of despicable laws

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) Twenty-First Century Socialism’s dictatorships in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua have a simulation of the “legislative branch” or “assembly” that it proclaims as “the supreme power of the State,” empowered to “approve, modify, and repeal laws,” but in reality it is no more than a subordinate of the regime to simulate having separation and independence of the branches of government and to attempt to legalize State-terrorism and transnational organized crime through “despicable laws.”

I have defined as “despicable laws” those standard rules that are drafted and established following the formal process for their creation but violate, in their content and objective, human rights and individual basic freedoms. Despicable laws are the normal byproduct of dictatorships’ legislatives but can also occur in a democracy in which case the constitutional controls based upon the “rule of law” promptly rectify any abuse.

In a democracy, the legislative is part of the government based on the separation and independence of the branches of government and, beyond formulating laws, has the role of oversight of the executive, a very notorious and effective function even in governments with a parliamentarian majority, by its subjection to the “rule of law,” that is the compliance with all laws subjected to the control of constitutionality exercised by the judicial branch or a constitutional tribunal.

The narrative of dictatorships is based on the falsification and supplantation of concepts, as proven by the Constitution of Cuba’s dictatorship that labels it as “the republic proclaimed on 10 April of 2019,” calls it “a democratic State” in which they inscribe crimes and instigation to commit them, as seen in its Article 4 that says “the socialist system this constitution endorses is irrevocable. Citizens have the right to combat by any means, including the armed fight, whenever there is no other possible recourse, against anyone who attempts to topple the political, social, and economic order established by this Constitution.”

Cuba’s dictatorial pseudo-constitutionalism has expanded into Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, and has failed in Chile, Argentina, Peru, and other countries. It is solely the formulation -by force- of standards that violate the principles and values of freedom and democracy and the minimal foundations of respect for human rights. It is about organized crime dictating themes and ideas to turn criminals into politicians and transform crimes against humanity into actions that counterfeit concepts.

In this order, dictatorships’ legislatives are only mechanisms of obedience to decisions to concentrate all power through puppet operators that are called legislators, congressmen, assembly representatives, who must be removed from their positions and be repudiated for bearing such honorable titles in order to protect the true representatives of popular sovereignty. This can only occur in a democracy with; universal suffrage, free and fair elections, accountability, rule of law, freedom of the press, free political association, and without State-terrorism.

In dictatorships of 21st Century Socialism, there are none of the fundamental components of democracy, much to the contrary; their features consist of the denial of such components because dictatorships can be easily recognized by their violation of human rights and individual basic freedoms. Proof is; the existence of political prisoners, the inexistence of separation and independence of the branches of government evidenced by the active participation of their judges and legislators in State-terrorism, the inexistence of the rule of law, corroborated by the violation of laws universally applicable, the disappearance of the universal suffrage as an expression of the people’s sovereignty replaced by vote-catching dictatorships wherein people vote but do not elect, and for the impossibility of free political organization expressed by systems of only one unique party or with functional oppositions.

This reminder of old findings should avoid us all from falling in the shenanigans of dictatorships, their simulations, their falsifications, their traps that consist of committing more crime that only gives them more time to wield power. None of the rules and laws that emanate from the so-called legislatures or assemblies of dictatorships from Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, or Nicaragua can continue to be accepted neither by democratic countries nor their leaders.

Dictatorships are an anomaly, an attack against humanity and the international system. Tolerance of democratic nations, heads of State, and heads of governments of democracies in the Americas and the world to their existence and their sustained counterfeiting of institutional sophisms, only reveals the shortfall of leaders, at a time in which available information easily identifies falsehood.

Despicable laws that are unjust are resisted by subjected peoples of dictatorships but, above it all, must not be accepted and tolerated by the international system. Silence is not an option; the worst of crimes is that of omission.

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

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas