8 33. The petitioners further claimed that pursuant to Article 23.1.c of the Convention, the alleged victims enjoy the right to “have access, under general conditions of equality, to the public service of their country” and that even though the exercise of that right may be regulated based on age, nationality, residence, language, education, legal or mental capacity, it may not be regulated based on political opinions or ideology. On this score, they alleged that excluding people from government jobs who do not share the official ideology of the government, fosters a system of political apartheid and makes exercising publically held rights subject to severe punishment. 34. With regard to Article 24 of the Convention, the arguments of the petitioners are focused on the violation of the alleged victims right to equal protection under the law as a consequence of the unilateral and early termination of their labor contract based on allegedly ideological reasons. In this regard, they assert that public employees, who were committed to the political project of the president of the Republic at the time, were able to freely express their opinions without being fired from the government, in contrast with the alleged victims. 35. As for the right to judicial protection (Article 25 of the Convention), the petitioners claimed that the authorities maintained that the complainants were serving in positions of trust and that, consequently, they could be removed at the discretion of their superiors. However, the petitioners note that the alleged victims did not hold positions of trust, inasmuch as: (i) the State had not complied with the provisions of Article 53 of the Law of the Public Service Statute, which sets forth that positions of trust must expressly be listed in the organic regulations of the entities of the civil service; (ii) the alleged victims were never invited to take part at high-level meetings; and (iii) all of them had served in the civil service on the National Border Council for more than two administrations, without being replaced due to the change in government. Based on this classification, the petitioners contended, the alleged victims did not have access to a simple and prompt remedy to provide relief to them from the decisions of the administration. 36. They also contended that “in the absence of the rule of law, in which independent and impartial tribunals operate, any remedy providing relief before the Venezuelan courts would have proven to be ineffective.” 37. Concerning Article 26 of the Convention, the petitioners argued that the dismissal of the victims from their jobs was an infringement of their right to work, which is an economic and social right, and that even though the Convention does not explicitly flesh out the catalogue of economic and social rights, for this purpose it refers to the economic and social norms set forth in Article 45 of the OAS Charter, which establishes said right and, therefore, the facts of the instant case constitute a violation of the right to progressive development enshrined in the aforementioned article. In this same vein, the petitioners also alleged a violation of Article 29.b and 29.d of the Convention, being that these provisions prohibit interpreting the Convention in such a way so as to confine the enjoyment and exercise of any right that may be recognized in accordance with another convention to which the State involved is a party. As this pertains to the instant case, the right to work is enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and in the Protocol of San Salvador and both instruments have been signed and ratified by the Venezuelan State.