vi)
vii)
viii)
ix)
rights and those that relate to the common good, it is clear that the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights, by failing to restrict itself to ordering
compensation for the supposed violation of rights, used the judgment analyzed to
interfere unacceptably in the regulation and administration of the judicial sector
which corresponds exclusively to the Supreme Court of Justice”;26
“The Inter-American Court equated absolutely the rights of the tenured judges
and the provisional judges, which is absolutely unacceptable and contrary to the
law”;27
“The contested judgment attempts to disregard the definitive nature of
administrative and judicial decisions that have acquired the status of res judicata
by ordering the reinstatement of the judges who were removed”;28
“[I]t is not a question of interpreting the meaning and scope of the judgment of
the Inter-American Court […], or of disregarding the treaty validly signed by the
Republic that substantiates it, or of eluding the commitment to execute the
decisions pursuant to the provisions of Article 68 of the [American] Convention
on Human Rights, but of applying a minimum standard of adaptation of the
judgment to the domestic constitutional order,”29 and
“The execution of the judgment of the Inter-American Court […] would affect
essential principles and values of the constitutional order of the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela and could result in institutional chaos within the system of
justice, by attempting to modify the autonomy of the Judiciary established by the
Constitution and the disciplinary system establishes by law; moreover, it also
aspires to obtain the reinstatement of the, today, former justices of the First
Administrative Court.”30 In addition, the Constitutional Chamber asked the
Executive, “based on the same principle and pursuant to the provisions of
Article 78 of the American Convention on Human Rights, to […] proceed to
denounce this Convention, in view of the evident usurpation of functions in which
the Inter-American Court has incurred […] with the judgment that is the subject
of this decision.”31
3. Arguments of the parties during the private hearing
14.
During the private hearing, the State argued, in relation to compliance with the
26
Judgment 1939 of December 18, 2008, of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice,
folio 166.
27
Judgment 1939 of December 18, 2008, of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice,
folio 171.
28
Judgment 1939 of December 18, 2008, of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice,
folio 174.
29
In this regard, the judgment cited, as an example, the decision in which “the judgment delivered by the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights on May 30, 1999, in the case of Castillo Petruzzi et al. was declared
unenforceable by the Plenary Chamber of the Supreme Council of Military Justice of Peru, considering, among other
matters, that the Judiciary ‘is autonomous and, in the exercise of its functions, its members do not depend on any
administrative authority, which reveals a resounding ignorance of the relevant Peruvian laws’; which ‘attempts to
ignore the Peruvian Constitution and subject it to the American Convention on Human Rights in the interpretation
that the judges of the said Court make ad libitum in that judgment.’” Judgment 1939 of the Constitutional Chamber
of the Supreme Court of Justice of December 18, 2008, folio 175.
30
Judgment 1939 of December 18, 2008, of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice,
folio 176.
31
Judgment 1939 of December 18, 2008, of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice,
folio 177.
7