Open war at Venezuela's Supreme Court
By Miguel Octavio
The Electoral Hall of the Venezuelan Supreme Court ratified its decision on the same calligraphy forms, ratifying its earlier decision and rebutting each of the reasons given by the Constitutional hall for voiding its earlier decision. The Electoral Hall asked the Full Court to decide the conflict of competence between the two Halls.
The decision which can be found here addresses all of the points raised by the Constitutional Hall, questions many of them and points to the illegalities the Constitutional Hall was involved in. Among the highlights:
-It reminds the Constitutional Hall that when it issued the order to the Electoral Hall to cease considering the original injunction, it refereed to a non-existent sentence by the Constitutional Hall.
-It notes that Ismael Garcia is not part of the process, a failure which the Constitutional hall failed to consider. Basically, the Electoral hall is saying that to review a decision, the party requesting the revision has to be part of the process, which Mr., Garcia was not.
-It ratifies that the Electoral Hall has the ability to review electoral cases and that this has been the jurisprudence in all cases, as well as being defined in Article 297 of the Constitution.
-The Electoral Hall does not acknowledge, like the Constitutional hall said, that it has disobeyed it. It says it is not subordinate to the Constitutional Hall that said Hall had not proceeded legally to look into the case, it could not look into it and the person that requested the revision had no right to ask for it.
-The Electoral Hall says it is amazed that the Constitutional accuses it of not following procedure, ignoring the body of evidence that it did follow the required steps as it is registered in the notebooks of the Hall.
-Says the Constitutional Hall is going beyond its range of competence, assigning itself functions beyond what is established by the Constitution.
-It encourages that both Halls meet to find a solution to the conflict until the Full Court decides.
The Full Court could take up to two or three months to meet, but at the same time the Justices could give the matter urgency and a decision could be made much sooner. Thus, once again, the Electoral Hall, tells the Constitutional one that if it wants conflict it will have it and is ready to fight for its rights under the Constitution.
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