5 21. The petitioners asserted that on April 15, 2005, then President of the Republic Hugo Chávez Frías publically ordered congressman Luis Tascón’s list to be “buried.” They further noted that on April 26, 2005, the Attorney General of the Republic commissioned Prosecuting Attorney number 49 of the Metropolitan Area of Caracas to investigate the complaints of political discrimination; nonetheless, the alleged victims were never called by said prosecutor, even though a complaint had been filed by them. 22. The petitioners asserted that on August 24, 2005, the Association for the Defense of the Signers of the Petition charged that there was a “second Tascón List” called the “Maisanta List” or “Maisanta Program,” which had been copied onto a compact disc and distributed throughout the different agencies of the civil service for discriminatory purposes. 23. As to the procedures followed by the alleged victims under the domestic legal system of the State, the petitioners noted that on May 27, 2004, Mmes. Rocío San Miguel Sosa, Magally Chang Girón and Thais Coromoto Peña filed charges with the Attorney General of the Republic of Venezuela regarding the facts that are the subject of the instant petition. On July 7, 2004, the office of the lead prosecuting attorney in the case ordered a criminal investigation into the charges to be opened. However, on January 21, 2005, the same prosecutor moved to dismiss the case because in his view the incidents stated in the complaint did not constitute criminal offenses as defined under Venezuelan criminal law. On April 4, 2005, Control Court 21 of the Criminal Judicial Circuit of the Metropolitan Area of Caracas dismissed the charges on the grounds that the facts stated in the complaint were not criminal offenses under the law. On April 15, 2005, the complainants filed an appeal of the dismissal ruling, inasmuch as they considered the facts laid out in the complaint to constitute the crimes set forth in Articles 166, 175, 203, 254 and 286 of the Criminal Code,1 Article 256 of the Organic Law of Voting and Political Participation2 and Article 68 of the Law against Corruption,3 all related to crimes of corruption 1 The Criminal Code of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela published in Official Gazette issue N° 5.768 on April 13, 2005. Article 166 of said Code prescribes that “anyone who, by means of violence, threats or disturbances, prevents or paralyzes, totally or partially, the exercise of any of the political rights, provided that the act is not prescribed under a special provision of the law, shall be punished with a prison sentence in a prison facility or political crimes facility for a period of fifteen days to fifteen months. If the guilty party is a public official and has committed the crime of abuse of power in office, the period of imprisonment is from six to thirty months.” While, Article 175 establishes that “anyone who, without authority or the right to do so, by means of threats, violence or other unlawful means of compulsion, forces a person to execute an act which he or she is not obligated by law to execute or tolerate, or prevents him or her from executing one that he or she is not prohibited from executing under the law, shall be punished with a prison term of fifteen days to thirty months. If the act is perpetrated with abuse of public authority, or against a relative or spouse, or against a public official by reason their duties, or if the act has resulted in serious damages to the person, the health or the property of the aggrieved party, the punishment shall be a prison term of thirty months to five years.” Article 203 establishes that “any public official who abuses their office, orders or executes to the detriment of any person any arbitrary act that is not specially defined as a crime or minor offense under a provision of the law, shall be punished with a prison term of fifteen days to one year and should he or she act out of a private interest, the punishment shall be increased by one sixth. The same punishment shall apply to any public official who, in the performance of his or her duties, incites a person to disobey the law or measures taken by the authority.” Whereas Article 254 sets forth that “anyone who after committing a crime punishable by a short or long term of incarceration, without agreeing to do so prior to the same crime and without contributing to ultimately carry it out, who aids, notwithstanding ensuring the success, in eluding the investigations of the authority or [aids] criminals in avoiding the authority in a chase, or in serving sentence or those who in any way destroy or tamper with tracks or clues of a crime, shall be punished with a prison term of one to five years.” Article 286 provides that “when two or more persons associate with the purpose to commit crimes, each person shall be punished, for the fact of the association, with a prison term of two to five years.” Available at: http://www.defensoria.gob.ve/dp/index.php/leyes-regimen-penitenciario/1355 2 Organic Law of Voting and Political Participation published in Official Gazette issue No. 5200 on December 30, 1997. Article 256 of said law provides: “anyone who restricts the liberty and secrecy of the vote of citizens shall be punished with a