Actions of organized crime in Venezuela to continue usurping power are null of legality and are punishable

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) Five weeks after the 28-J presidential elections in Venezuela, the situation is defined with the acknowledgement of the resounding victory of Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia and the affirmation that Nicolas Maduro’s criminal group only has the commission of crime as a tool to continue usurping power. Maduro and his cartel of transnational State-terrorism have counterfeited electoral results and have attempted to legalize those results through puppet judges. Venezuela’s legitimate Supreme Tribunal of Justice, however, has declared such acts to be null and has ruled them to be punishable.

Venezuelans have always fought for their freedom and defended democracy. Some were opposed to enable a jailed convict and coup-monger Hugo Chavez as a candidate, some attempted to democratically prevent he be elected to the presidency, many risked their lives to prevent him from consolidating his dictatorship, enough of them never believed his narrative and forecasted misery and, when his very opportune -for Cuba’s dictatorship- death occurred, the total control of Venezuela was transformed and millions of Venezuelans became part of the resistance or went to exile.

In this protracted fight, the forces of Castrochavist organized crime retained the power of government with the existence of a “functional opposition” that never had the intention to ascend to become the government, but to only be an enabler and sustain the dictatorship. In this process, however, many important historical events took place such as the election, by the National Assembly, on 21 July of 2017, of Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice for a term of 12 years.

Immediately after the swearing-in of magistrates of Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice, dictator Nicolas Maduro publicly ordered the detention and prosecution -by military tribunals- of the magistrates, accusing them of treason to the homeland, usurpation of functions, and association to commit crime, and ordered a freeze of their assets and bank accounts. On 22 July of 2017, the National Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN in Spanish) and the National Directorate of Military Counter Intelligence (DGCIM in Spanish) detained magistrate Ángel Zerpa a member of the Politico-Administrative Chamber and caused the remainder of magistrates to go underground and leave Venezuela.

This Supreme Tribunal of Justice of Venezuela is the only legitimate one with a constitutional mandated term until 21 July of 2029, and is the only Judicial Court of Jurisdiction. It continues to be integrated by 23 magistrates exiled in five countries; 13 in the United States, three in Chile, three in Panama, two in Spain, one in Colombia, and one in Germany.

In order to prevent the impunity of Venezuela’s criminal political actors, on 13 October of 2017, at a public event celebrated at the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington D.C., the tribunal started to exercise its constitutional mandate as Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice and ever since has handed down relevant rulings the dictatorship does not meet, the international system acknowledges, that are ample legal proof of crimes committed by the criminal group that wields power in Venezuela.

Nicolas Maduro and his accomplices’ disregard, fraudulent use of the judicial, persecution, and blaring defiance to the legal empowerment of Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice are part of the constant commission of crime they now are attempting to replicate to undermine the resounding triumph of Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia and the leadership of Maria Corina Machado. Twenty-First Century Socialism’s transnational organized criminals falsify, imprison, exile, torture, and kill to perpetuate themselves in power, but beyond their control exerted by force and violence, such acts are null and void of legality, illegitimate, illegal, and are proof of crimes that sustain them while they wield power.

Through Resolution SP-R021/2024, dated 30 August of 2024, Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice in absolute plenary consensus “…orders the National Electoral Council (CNE in Spanish) to complete all electoral actions relevant to the presidential elections conducted this past 28th of July of 2024, DECLARING AS PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA, CITIZEN EDMUNDO GONZALEZ URRUTIA” and “RULES AS INEXISTING AND, THEREFORE, NULL AND VOID OF LEGALITY, THE PROCLAMATION READ ON 29 JULY OF 2024 BY CITIZEN ELVIS AMOROSO HIDOBRO announcing Nicolas Maduro Moros as winner of the presidential elections.”

The second article “declares as NULL AND VOID, AND INEFFECTIVE, the document read by Citizen Attorney Carysilia Beatriz Rodríguez, jointly with Citizen Attorneys Fanny Márquez and Inocencio Figueroa who, usurping functions, pretend to judicially validate the irresponsible performance of the National Electoral Council (CNE).”

It has been ordered by competent authority; criminal acts do not generate any rights, they are null and void of law, produce penal and civil liabilities, and there is no impunity. This is the critical and great role the legitimate Supreme Tribunal of Justice of Venezuela is performing.

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

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas