How to protect a criminal in Venezuela? Name him to the Supreme Court!

The Anderson case has been violently reopened when one of the prosecutors of the investigation basically admitted that he was forced to forge evidence to implicate given folks. The orders, or at least the implications to execute this or that misdeed came directly from the then General Prosecutor of the country, former vice president, Isaias Rodriguez. In recent days all sorts of things came to float again and the more time passed the less Isaias Rodriguez looked good. Today we even got treated to a tale on how false witness were promoted.

So, what happened today? In breaking news Isaias Rodriguez would have been named to the Highest Court of Venezuela, as an interim judge to no one else but the chief justice of Venezuela, Luisa Morales.

So, where do I start?

First, I am wondering if such move is real or if is a trial balloon to see the reaction of the country. Because if this is true then we are in deeper shit than what I thought we were.....

The High Court, TSJ, is supposedly named by the National Assembly after a lengthy consultation process. Of course, most present judges did not fulfill many of the requirements but still made it to judge, including Luis Morales who in her past was fired twice as a judge for shoddy work. But she is willing to take all the legal chances for Chavez and she is thus in the TSJ where for example she stole personally all the communication equipment of RCTV. "Stole", I meant that word.

That the chief justice of the country can be replaced by a judge named by its colleagues is simply inviable. If it is indeed constitutional then the constitution must be changed ASAP!!!! Because let's not be fooled, if this is indeed true, when Luisa is on vacation, Isaias will be the "superior" of his colleagues even though he was not named by the National Assembly. I do sincerely hope that I am wrong and that tomorrow I will stand corrected, and gratefully at that!

But even if this worse case scenario does not happen, the second explanation is not any more reassuring. See, even if Isaias is now only doing clerical jobs when Luisa is out of town, without any authority over his Assembly named colleagues, he will still benefit from prosecution immunity!!!!!! That is, it will nearly impossible to send him to trial, to question him. The procedure to remove his legal protection would be as difficult as the one to remove a "legal" judges!

That is, suddenly, as the Anderson Case is blowing up, Isaias is removed from any declaration, any responsibility, any investigation of wrong doing, of welcoming false witnessing, making up charges and what not!

To give the US reader a sense of what might have happened today, it would be the same thing as if the Supreme Court were allowed to name a temporary substitute to the Chief Justice and that this substitute would be protected from any investigation unless 6 other judges out of 9 approved such an investigation and dismissed him of his responsibilities. Imagine for example that a given US Attorney General who fudged the evidence of say, some Iraqi jail abuses or some illegal firings at the justice department, were named to the Supreme Court bypassing any Senate vote just to protect him from been further questioned and risk revealing wrongdoings involving the Vice President of the US!

Anyway, whatever it is really going on with Isaias I take this a confession from the state that Isaias has indeed manipulated evidence, sent people unjustly to jail or to exile, ruined the reputation of many others, and cannot hide it any longer. In a panicky moment they are trying to store him away. They are not realizing that at the same time they are agreeing in that he set up the whole thing himself, lying to us for all of these years.

I am reminded of a famous failed Austrian painter who eventually avenged himself from alleged ills he thought society had directed at him through immense cruelty. Isaias Rodriguez is himself a failed poet who had no problem hurting people deliberately to get something. It is exactly the same mental process.


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