Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal backs disqualification of corrupt candidates (Updated II)

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Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal backs disqualification of corrupt candidates

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UPDATES: 7 August 2008. It emerged that Rubén Laguna,the legal assistant of the judge who issued the ruling on disqualifications, was shot on Tuesday night. Lawyer Laguna was driving his motorcycle home when two men intercepted and shot him badly.  Laguna initially survived the attack but died early this morning. There are speculations over the motives of the attack. Some have argued it an attempt to steal his motorcycle but others cried it was politically motivated. The attack occurred in Baruta distric in Caracas where the candidate favoured by its current Major- David Uzcategui Campins- was disqualified by the Supreme Tribunal.  

6 August 2008: The Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal issued two more rulings confirming the disqualifications of two leaders of the opposition- Leopoldo Lopez Mendoza and David Uzcategui Campins- who attempted to stand as candidate in local elections. There is still one constitutional resort pending on Uzcategui though. In reaction to the confirmed disqualifications, opposition students led by Yon Goicochea staged a demonstration today at Chacaito, central Caracas to oppose the Supreme Tribunal rulings. Goicochea who was awarded the Milton Friedman prize recently promised to burn down Caracas.

Caracas, Venezuela, 5 August 2008. Tonight, the Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice confirmed the constitutionality of the Comptroller General’s disqualification of candidates for public office.  Since February 2008, over 260 public servants have been barred from further governmental positions due to administrative sanctions on corruption or mismanagement of public funds, that is, abusing taxpayer moneys. The majority of such public servants who were disqualified by the Comptroller General, Clodosvaldo Russián (photo), belong to pro government parties. A minority of the disqualified officials are opposition party members who served at local government level as they were democratically elected to do so.

The decision of the Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal rejected the constitutional challenge resort made against article 105 of the Comptroller General’s Law which allowed for the administrative disqualification of public servants. This law was hotly debated and backed by the opposition MPs at Parliament in 2001.  Since them, quite a number of civil servants have been prevented from office again after failing to prove innocence on corruption or mismanagement charges. This administrative disqualification does not include or except the civil servant from further penal charges or refunds. However, it is only recently that prominent opposition members and local election candidate hopefuls have argued political exclusion from this administrative sanctions on corruption.  In reaction, opposition demonstrations were staged against the disqualifications which they labelled as black lists or political exclusion. Some international denunciations at regional bodies -like Mercosur - were used to politically oppose recent disqualifications. As corruption disqualifications are now constitutionally bounding, it would be difficult for the opposition to confirm disqualified candidates for the local elections due in November 23, 2008.

Sources: Globovision, VTV, Unionradio, BBC Mundo, Telesur, El Universal,

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