Venezuelas Right Wing Confesses to 17 years of Political Delinquency: The Amnesty Bill

[Judi Lynn]

By Dr Francisco Dominguez


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.

Venezuela’s Right Wing Opposition has just managed to perform an event that surpasses Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 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. Venezuela’s Right Wing majority in the National Assembly’s ‘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 Opposition’s 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 Venezuela’s National Assembly: The Constitutional and Political Stakes).

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-francisco-dominguez/venezuelas-right-wing-con_b_9401644.html

[GatoGordo]

2. Oh my! Political delinquency!

17 years happens to coincide with the reign of terror known as Chavismo.

Coincidence?