Venezuelan Vice-president Nicolas Maduro has publicly rejected an early release request for a jailed police commissioner convicted for his role in civilian killings during the short-lived 2002 coup against the Chavez government.
Over the weekend Venezuela’s democratic institutions received a new show of international support after judicial authorities from across the Americas and Iberian Peninsula selected the socialist democracy to host the Ibero-American Institute of Higher Judicial Studies.
In 2011 Venezuela’s Office of the Attorney General solved 1,015,767 cases and received 807,811 new cases, said Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz on Wednesday. “For the first time ever, the number of cases solved exceeded the cases received,” confirmed Ortega Díaz during a televised interview.
Minister for Prison Services Iris Varela informed yesterday that families have “self-kidnapped” themselves in the Yare 1 prison in Miranda state in order to make political demands, while over Christmas President Hugo Chavez issued a presidential pardon for 141 prisoners.
By Joe Emersberger and Jeb Sprague , Nov 14th 2011
In this piece, Joe Emersberger and Jeb Sprague discuss filmaker Edward Ellis' documentary "Tierras Libres". The documentary explores the assassinations of peasant-activists killed by hired assassins for trying to implement the government's land reform project and their families' quest for justice within a judicial system that is still controlled in large part by the national elite.
Moving forward with prison reform at the national level, Venezuelan Minister for Penitentiary Services, Iris Varela, announced this week the implementation of a prisoner survey designed to uncover unnecessary hangups in the legal system and relieve strains on the inmate population.
This week, Venezuela’s National Assembly (AN) unanimously approved the Law Against Racial Discrimination, legislation that will establish mechanisms to prevent, respond to, punish and eradicate racial discrimination by any person, group of persons, public authorities, private institutions and private institutions, and civil, economic, political, cultural, and social organizations.
More than 40% of the red alerts requested of Interpol by Venezuela in the case of the fugitive bankers have been blocked over the last year, by a committee of lawyers working for the international organisation.
