Latin America
Related: About this forumVenezuela’s Right Wing Confesses to 17 years of Political Delinquency: The Amnesty Bill
Venezuelas Right Wing Confesses to 17 years of Political Delinquency: The Amnesty Bill
03/08/2016 06:39 pm ET | Updated Mar 08, 2016
Introduction
A confesion de parte, relevo de prueba
(Spanish legal expression: When there is confession, no evidence is required).
Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes could not imagine how correct he was when he said that the challenge a Latin American writer faced was to produce fiction that was more extraordinary than reality itself.
Venezuelas Right Wing Opposition has just managed to perform an event that surpasses Gabriel Garcia Marquezs magic realism: On 18th February 2016, making use of their majority in the National Assembly, they have passed an Amnesty Bill that seeks to provide legal impunity to acts of political delinquency they and their supporters have perpetrated for 17 years. Venezuelas Right Wing majority in the National Assemblys amnesty bill is not only an admission of guilt for, but also a well organised catalogue of, the political offences they and their supporters have perpetrated since 1999.
The Bill is upfront about what it seeks to amnesty: acts defined as crimes, misdemeanours or infringements ... and other acts provided for herein. (Art.1) This Bill is an Oppositions colossal Freudian slip since with it they, unwittingly, have admitted their guilt of more than a decade and a half of illegal, violent and undemocratic political felonies.
The Amnesty Bill is not yet law, since it needs to go through several constitutional procedures, including being vetoed by President Nicolas Maduro, who has condemned the Bill in the strongest terms. In the highly likely event of President Maduro vetoing it, the Bill will then be referred to the Supreme Court (TSJ) to get it to issue a ruling on its constitutionality. The TSJ can declare the Bill unconstitutional regardless of the size of the Right Wing majority in the National Assembly (for details of what the Opposition majority in the National Assembly can and cannot do read my article in the Huffington Post, Right Wing Majority in Venezuelas National Assembly: The Constitutional and Political Stakes).
More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-francisco-dominguez/venezuelas-right-wing-con_b_9401644.html?utm_hp_ref=venezuela
MisterP
(23,730 posts)the main way of resolving a family dispute is to shoot the other guy's lawyer and then buy out the police
not the policeMEN, a whole police BRANCH--like all the country's detectives
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)you have links supporting these novel allegations?
Judi Lynn
(160,451 posts)and crude viciousness needed to aim for the bigger results they get when they are driven to control everything once again, and return the masses of unconnected, unrepresented citizens to their former helplessness, and hopelessness.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)and left the government holding the bag TWICE
there's no "bigger results" at play here
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Marksman_91
(2,035 posts)Leopoldo Lopez gets jailed for calling to a protest that dissolves into chaos thanks to Chavista-sympathizing security forces and gangs shooting at unarmed protesters, and he gets a 13-year sentence for it? The hypocrisy is astounding.