The Venezuelan Parliament reduces the number of Supreme Court magistrates to increase their interference

Deputies of the Venezuelan National Assembly pose at the beginning of January after the inaugural session of the parliamentary year in the Legislative Palace, in Caracas (Venezuela). Miguel Gutiérrez (EFE)

The Venezuelan Parliament, controlled by Chavismo, approved the reduction of the number of magistrates of the Supreme Court from 32 to 20 judges, after a short debate that began on December 30 amid criticism from specialists and civil society organizations. With the modification, the Constitutional Chamber will be made up of five magistrates and the remaining five (Electoral, Political-Administrative, Civil Cassation, Criminal Cassation and Social Cassation) by three magistrates, compared to the seven and five they had until now. The number of magistrates, however, is not the main criticism of this reform. It is not the first time that the conformation has been changed. At the time, during the government of former President Hugo Chávez, the number of judges was increased from 12 to 32, one of the first steps he took to control the court.

The new changes modify the composition of the nominations committee that presents the candidates for magistrates. The Venezuelan Constitution establishes that this committee must be composed solely of actors and legal experts from civil society. As of the reform, it will have 11 deputies and 10 members of civil society, which gives greater control to the Parliament, totally related to the Government of Nicolás Maduro, over the Judicial Power. In the initial proposal, the deputies were a minority in this representation.

Chavismo is making a move forward on a core issue that was on the agenda of the negotiations between the government and the opposition in Mexico, currently frozen. The latest report of the independent mission sent by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, pointed to the Judiciary as an arm of repression and human rights violations that weigh on the Government of Nicolás Maduro. In recent months, some specific legal reforms have been made to improve its image before the International Criminal Court, whose prosecutor Karim Khan visited the country at the beginning of last November. During the meeting, he signed a memorandum with Nicolás Maduro in which the country promised to carry out a comprehensive reform of the judicial system,at the same time that he decided to open an investigation for the possible commission of crimes against humanity in Venezuela.

The reform came from the president of the TSJ, Maikel Moreno, as announced by the leader of Parliament, Jorge Rodríguez, in mid-December. The motivation, he said then, was to give "a better management of the rooms." On Tuesday, during the discussion, the ruling deputy Diosdado Cabello justified the parliamentary majority within the committee as a way of not losing "stewardship over the process." For lawyer Ali Daniel, director of Access to Justice, the approved reform is much worse than the initial proposal. “From the outset there is already an imbalance, because the nominations committee, which should be an advisory body of the judiciary, already has an official majority. This is nothing more than a stage set to have the same judicial power that we have now.”

At the beginning of the month, the Civic Forum of Venezuela, a platform that brings together nearly a thousand civil society organizations and actors, warned that the reform was insufficient to guarantee judicial independence.

"If the procedures for the plural participation of other actors, experts and organizations of society are not established and respected, it will have little practical relevance that 20 and not 32 magistrates are appointed, or that they are approved by a simple or qualified majority", they pointed out in a statement.

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