Venezuela’s Chavez Designates State Counsel Members
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has named his five delegates who will make up the country’s new “State Counsel,” after announcing in February that he would create the body.
Caracas, May 3rd 2012 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has named his five delegates who will make up the country’s new state counsel after announcing in February that he would create the body. Although the legal basis for the counsel was set out in the 1999 Constitution, it has not been established until now.
According to the guidelines outlined in the Venezuelan Constitution, the main function of the body will be to recommend policies which are in the “national interest” to the executive and which require the president’s special attention.
The body will be made up of five representatives designated by the president, one representative from the country’s National Assembly, one from the Supreme Court, and another who will be chosen by the nation’s state legislators.
With Vice-president Elias Jaua at the head of the body, President Chavez named his chosen delegates as; journalist and former Vice-president José Vicente Rangel, Venezuelan ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS) Roy Chaderton, attorney and representative to the OAS Germán Mundaraín, attorney and writer Luis Britto and Admiral Carlos Giacopini.
The five members’ substitutes were named as Ismelda Rincón, Soraya El Achkar, Miguel Pérez, Samuel Moncada and Jesús Martínez.
The other representatives must now be named before the counsel can be officially established, with its first task being to begin the process of removing Venezuela from the OAS International Court of Human Rights.