Mr. President,
Human Rights Watch thanks the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers for her report. We were encouraged to see that she refers to the case of María Lourdes Afiuni, a Venezuelan judge who was arbitrarily arrested in December 2009, after authorizing the conditional release of an individual whose pretrial detention had been declared arbitrary by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions.
The decision to prosecute Judge Afiuni for upholding Venezuelan and international law is a blow to judicial independence and the rule of law in Venezuela. Immediately after Afiuni's arrest, President Hugo Chávez publicly called her a "bandit" and said she should be sentenced to 30 years in prison. A provisional judge (who lacks security of tenure) recently ordered Afiuni's trial to proceed on corruption charges, even though prosecutors explicitly stated that Afiuni had not received any payment or promise of payment. She remains in pre-trial detention.
This case exemplifies the lack of judicial independence in Venezuela. In 2004, President Chávez and his supporters effectively neutralized the judiciary as an independent branch of government through a political takeover of the Supreme Court, filling it with government supporters and creating new measures that make it possible to purge justices from the Court. Since then, the Court has largely abdicated its role as a check on executive power, and has failed to uphold fundamental rights enshrined in the Venezuelan constitution in key cases involving government efforts to limit freedom of expression and association. The impact of the takeover has extended to the entire judiciary.
We acknowledge the important role by the Special Rapporteur and respectfully urge her to keep monitoring the case of Judge María Lourdes Afiuni and to press the government of Venezuela to drop all charges against her. We also ask that the Special Rapporteur request a country visit to Venezuela to look into the broader limitations on the independence of judges and lawyers in the country, and make recommendations to the Venezuelan government to address these concerns.
