JUAN FRANCISCO ALONSO
EL UNIVERSAL

Claiming that an intended constitutional reform is likely to turn the Constitution into "a source of social fracture and serious conflicts," the representatives of 10 Venezuelan universities and colleges, as well as dozens of law professors, Tuesday asked the National Assembly to suspend the ongoing modifications to the Constitution as proposed by President Hugo Chávez.

They rather urged the Legislature to launch urgently talks among the different sectors in the country, to seek consensus on the review of the Constitution.

The deans of the Law Schools at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB), Monteávila University (UMA), Carabobo University (UC), José María Vargas University, Arturo Michelena University, Metropolitan University (Unimet), Yacambú University, José Antonio Páz University, and the Catholic University of Táchira (UCAT), as well as three members of the Academy of Political and Social Sciences, and 14 professors of constitutional law rejected Chávez' proposed changes to the Constitution. They also rebutted the fact that the Venezuelan Legislature introduced changes additional to the modifications advanced by Chávez. They branded such additions as "legally unacceptable."

In a press conference held at the headquarters of UCAB in Chacao, northeast Caracas, the Dean of UCAB Law School Jesús María Casal read a communiqué stating: "The Constitution should be a point of convergence for the diverse political currents and even for political currents that opposed to each other. It is not supposed to be statutory platform aimed at enthroning someone's principles and excluding the others. If the Constitution matches the ideology of one single political-partisan sector, then it is no longer open to other ways of thinking and to other ways of envisaging both the political actions and people's relations with society."
 
Human rights undermined
While they did not suggested people to endorse or reject the changes to the Constitution, the jurists warned that such modifications encompass a number of "regressive" provisions regarding human rights.

They added that the intended changes hinder the people's ability to activate mechanisms such as referenda, and make the mechanisms of participation conditional to the construction of socialism.

They reminded that the copyrights on scientific, artistic or humanistic works are likely to be dismantled. Further, the individuals' right to choose any economic activity for a living may be suppressed too. According to the experts, if the changes to the Constitution are approved, the state bodies will no longer be able to set limits and controls over the states of emergency as decreed by the Executive Branch.
 
Regarding the states of emergency, Casal stressed: "The National Assembly has to explain the country why they intend to lop our constitutional rights. What is their goal? Do they intend to go back to the suspension of the constitutional protections?"

Bye, bye, decentralization
The group of deans, law professors, and academicians rejected the proposal to implement the so-called "geometry of power." In their view, this planned modification empowers the president to create and suppress sea areas, federal cities, functional districts, federal territories, and any other new political-administrative structures, to the detriment of the powers of both regional and local administrations.

"Decentralization is likely to be abandoned as a national policy," the law experts warned. They also claimed that the intended reform actually undermines "the precarious independence of powers, as it provides for the dismissal of the justices of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice by a simple majority in a vote in the National Assembly."

Goods things do not need to be changed
The deans, professors, and academicians acknowledged that some proposed changes to the Constitution, such as the reduction of the labor hours and creation of a social protection fund for independent workers are positive.

However, they clarified that such proposal could and should have been implemented through a number of bills the Legislature should have passed.

Translated by Maryflor Suárez R.
msuarez@eluniversal.com