The Supreme Justice Court (TSJ) declared unanimously as unconstitutional the Law of Amnesty and National Reconciliation adopted by the National Assembly on March 29, 2016.
The Chamber states that «the State is obliged to investigate and legally punish crimes against human rights committed by its authorities. Actions to punish crimes against humanity, serious violations of human rights and war crimes are imprescriptible. Human rights violations and crimes against humanity will be investigated and tried by ordinary courts. Such offenses are excluded from the benefits that may result in impunity, including pardons and amnesty «(Highlights of this judgment).
The judgment also said that amnesty has been defined by the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy as the «Legal oblivion of crimes, which extinguishes the responsibility of the authors,» and therefore this figure is an exception to the obligation of the State to investigate and punish the sanctionable facts and an express waiver to the exercise of its punitive power, with a specific social justification founded mainly on reasons of political coexistence. However, it becomes inadmissible on crimes against humanity, serious violations of human rights or war crimes, since it is unacceptable to go unpunished behaviors of such magnitude that constitute a serious and real threat to the existence and development of all Humanity, as required by Article 29 of the Constitution.
Moreover, in the constitutional analysis it is warned that a political decision can not have the ability to modify a criminal proceeding or a penalty established by a judgment, since it opens a wide field to the arbitrary and unequal application of laws, which is the reason why the juridic order should set limits and safeguards for the institution of amnesty not to be inconsistent with the underlying principles that make a democratic and social state of law and justice. Otherwise it is incompatible with the constitutional principles.
The judgment explains one by one the various unconstitutional aspects on which incurs the aforementioned «Law of Amnesty and National Reconciliation» and warns that have been included in the aforementioned law common crimes unrelated to this constitutional figure.
The judgment warns that all the articles of the analyzed Law of Amnesty and National Reconciliation disowns the fact that Venezuela is a democratic and social State of law and justice, and that law drifts from the means constitutionally established in Articles 1, 2 and 3 of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which is why this Constitutional Court can not provide its conformity with the Constitution.
Regarding Chapter 6 of that law, Article 28 provides for the creation of a special commission for reconciliation, whose main duty is to monitor the implementation of the amnesty law itself, without observing from its writing the conception of a process in which all parties that may be involved, can initiate a communicative exchange leading to the mutual recognition and thus provide the basis for peace, founded on forgiveness, the understanding of the facts and the restoration of the social ties they allude so much to, but, on the contrary, the mere intention of, through this way, legitimizing the text of the law, which, as this Court has stated, is unconstitutional. So it is declared.
Finally, the judgment ordered the full publication of this decision in the Official Gazette of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as well as in the Judicial Gazette, whose summaries shall contain the following: «Decision of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Justice Court declaring the unconstitutionality of the Law of Amnesty and National Reconciliation, approved by the National Assembly on regular meeting of March 29, 2016 «.
It also orders the publication, record and archiving of the file and instructs that a certified copy of the judgment shall be referred to the President of the Republic and the President of the National Assembly.
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