This book is a collection of all the Essays of Professor Allan R.
Brewer-Carias on the Venezuelan Authoritarian Government and the
Demolition of the Rule of Law, written during the past fourteen
years (1999-2014), in which he has analyzed not only the most
important aspects of Venezuelan constitutional law provisions
according to the 1999 Constitution, but also how the authoritarian
government installed in the country since its enactment, has ruled
it against the rule of the Constitution, subverting the democratic
regime from within by using its own institutions and tools. The
process began with the convening of a Constituent Assembly in 1999
against the provisions of the then in force 1961 Constitution,
seeking to supposedly impose people's sovereignty over the
principle of constitutional supremacy. What resulted was the
intervention and takeover of all branches of government, being the
Constituent Assembly the main tool used for assaulting the State's
powers, imposing in the country an authoritarian, centralistic and
militaristic government, eliminating, any sort of check and balance
framework, subjecting the Judiciary to strict political control,
and consequently, dismantling the rule of law. In addition, the
Constituent Assembly assured that the main provisions of the new
Constitution, particularly on the decentralized form of government,
the principle of separation of powers, the independence of the
judiciary and the representative democratic government, were to be
suspended in their effective enforcement due to an endless
transitional constitutional regime it imposed. It was the same
"formula" of convening Constituent Assemblies departing from the
Constitution then in force, that a few years later was also applied
in Ecuador (2007), and ten years later was tried to be imposed in
Honduras (2009), in a failed presidential attempt that in that case
the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional. The idea, in any case,
continues to be a recurrent one that in many countries has been
proposed. The consequence of that process in Venezuela has been
that since the election of the late President Hugo Chavez Frias in
December 1998, whose only electoral program and proposal was to
convene a Constituent Assembly, the country, formerly envied
because of its democratic tradition and accomplishment during the
second half of the 20th century, suffered a tragic setback
regarding democratic standards, experiencing a continuous,
persistent and deliberated institution demolishing process and
destruction of democracy, never before occurred in the
constitutional history of the country. At his death, and after
fourteen years in power, the main political legacy of Chavez was no
other than a country lacking the most essential elements of
democracy as they are defined in the Inter American Democratic
Charter, namely the assurance of the access to power and its
exercise subject to the rule of law; the performing of periodic,
free and fair elections based on universal and secret vote as an
expression of the sovereignty of the people; the plural regime of
political parties and organizations; the separation and
independence of all branches of government, and the respect for
human rights and fundamental freedoms. All this process is analyzed
in this book, for which purpose the original text of the thirty
Essays it contains, written and many of them published in different
moments and occasions during the past years, has been preserved, so
despite the repetition of some ideas and references, they remain as
a testimony of the ideas expressed at the time when they were
written, and on the course of the different events that led to the
complete destruction of the constitutional rule and of the
democratic principle in the country."
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