Venezuela’s Supreme Court, a tribunal that dispenses justice tailored to Nicolás Maduro’s needs

Venezuela’s Supreme Court (TSJ) has, as expected, sealed its support for Nicolás Maduro. Controlled by the ruling party for two decades, Venezuela’s highest judicial institution validated on Thursday the results of the National Electoral Council (CNE) — another entity dominated by Chavismo — which proclaimed Nicolás Maduro the winner of the July 28 presidential election, but has still not released any voting records.

The court’s decision came as no surprise, given nearly all of the judges have ties to Chavismo. Shortly before the decision of the Supreme Court’s Electoral Chamber was announced, the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission in Venezuela warned of the court’s and the CNE’s lack of independence and impartiality. The ruling was rejected by the opposition, led by former presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, as well as several presidents in Latin America, such as Chile’s Gabriel Boric, who pointed to the court’s bias.

The president of the Supreme Court and its electoral chamber, Caryslia Beatriz Rodríguez, was a member of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) — founded by former president Hugo Chávez in 2008 — and held public office as the councilor in the Libertador municipality (Caracas) and acting mayor of Caracas between August and November 2021.

In an interview with the website Ciudad Caracas three years ago, Rodríguez said she was “deeply committed to the tasks delegated by the revolution” and “loyal” to the “worker president Nicolás Maduro and to the projects for the construction of socialism.” The only proof of this is a few screenshots published by the Venezuelan NGO Access to Justice, since the interview was deleted before Rodríguez was nominated as a judge.

The president of the TSJ and the other two judges that make up the Electoral Chamber, Fanny Márquez — the former head of Venezuela’s tax agency Seniat — and Inocencio Figueroa, are sanctioned by the Canadian government for usurping Venezuela’s democracy. As judges, Márquez and Figueroa are linked to the persecution of opposition deputies almost a decade ago and to the dismissal of former attorney general, Luisa Ortega in 2017. Ortega had denounced cases of alleged corruption and human rights violations by the Maduro regime. Today, at least 18 of the 20 members that make up this court been linked to Chavismo in the past, according to Laura Louza, director and founder of Access to Justice.

A slow-motion decline

In 2017, international bodies recognized the legitimacy of the 33 magistrates — 20 of them alternates — appointed to the TSJ by the National Assembly, where the opposition held the majority. All of them ended up in exile due to threats from the Maduro regime. Luis Manuel Marcano — who was one of these judges and now lives in Chile — recalls that “the problem of judicial independence” in Venezuela is not new: “The country came with a weakened democracy [before 1999], and what Chávez did was to generate a competitive authoritarianism and take over all powers, especially the judiciary, buying judges and carrying out impeachment processes. Maduro is completing the dismantling of the judicial system in a very savage manner, with great brutality, appointing untrained judges.”

For decades, Chavismo introduced legal reforms and appointments that ensured its control of the Supreme Court. According to the report The Seizure of absolute Power, by Access to Justice, the process began in August 1999. That year, the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) issued a decree reorganizing the state that paved the way for the state to intervene in institutions. A “judicial emergency commission” was also created, made up of several members appointed by the ANC. For months, this commission “dedicated itself to suspending and firing judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and other officials alleging corruption or judicial delays.”

In 2004, the National Assembly — with a Chavista majority — approved a law that increased the number of judges in the Supreme Court from 20 to 32, and reserved most of the positions on the Judicial Nominations Committee for lawmakers — not members of civil society. This legal instrument opened the doors for the ruling party to take complete control of the TSJ, since former PSUV deputies such as Luis Velásquez Alvaray, Luis Franceschi and Calixto Ortega were named as judges; as well as former ambassadors of the Chávez government, such as Gladys Gutiérrez, says Louza. “In that process, the judges who were not followers or showed independence left,” she explained.

Louza was not surprised by the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of Maduro. She also stressed that the TSJ “usurped” the functions that correspond to the National Electoral Council, and pointed out that the full texts of the Supreme Court, particularly those of the Electoral Chamber, have not been published since February.

What’s more, the names of the experts tasked with auditing the CNE results have not been revealed. “That is clearly a sign of a lack of transparency,” said Louza.

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