Appeals on Criminal Matters of the Supreme Court of Justice, to order the case to be reheard, because a hearing on the dismissal had not be conducted, which was denied even though a consistent legal precedent supporting their claim existed. 28. As for the alleged violation of freedom of thought and expression, the petitioners argued that the alleged victims were dismissed as punishment for expressing their political opinion by signing the petition for the recall referendum and, in so doing, their own opinion on the performance of the Venezuelan government. The petitioners also believed that the aforementioned punishment has a chilling effect. They stressed that there must be a wide margin of tolerance for statements about public officials, when matters of public interest are involved. 29. Concerning the right to association, the petitioners noted that a transitory association of citizens with the legitimate aim of revoking the mandate of President of the Republic, should not have been interfered by the State as it happen when the alleged victims were remove from their posts. 30. With regard to the alleged violation of the right to participate in government, the petitioners claimed that the alleged victims were the target of pressure to not exercise their political right to participate in the process of convening a recall referendum on the president’s term in office, and that their subsequent dismissal from their job amounted to a punishment for exercising said right. The petitioners also alleged that when the list of people who signed the petition to call for the referendum was made public, the right to vote by secret ballot, as provided for by Article 23.1.b of the Convention, was infringed. The petitioners further claimed the violation to Article 23.1.c of the Convention, given that excluding people from government jobs who do not share the official ideology of the government, fosters a system of political apartheid. 31. With regard to the right to equal protection and the principle of nondiscrimination, the petitioners stated that unlike the alleged victims, public officials who were committed to the political project of the then President of the Republic could freely express their views without being fired. They also alleged that the case is a clear example of political discrimination since the publication of the "Tascon list" had the effect of exposing to public hatred and contempt to those who signed the petition for the recall referendum. They added that the signatories of the list suffered various reprisals, like watching their access to public facilities being prevented, the cancelation of their contracts with the public administration, obstacles in obtaining identity documents, as well as the publication of their names on billboards of public offices and their classification as "traitors to the nation". 32. As for the right to judicial protection, the petitioners claimed that the alleged victims did not occupy 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. In general, they 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.” 33. Concerning the progressive development of economic, social and cultural rights, the petitioners argued that the dismissal of the victims from their jobs was an infringement of their right to work, set forth in Article 45 of the OAS Charter, to which Article 26 the Convention refers to They added that the principle of non-discrimination is fundamental in terms of economic, social and cultural rights. B. Position of the State 34. The State did not submit additional observations on the merits. In that sense, this section is based on the arguments of the State on the admissibility stage, as far as relevant for the analysis of the merits. 5