It’s entirely academic at this point, but for those of you keeping score at home: president Chávez has once again brazenly, directly violated the 1999 constitution with the newly unveiled reforms to the Organic Law on the Financial Management of the Public Sector.
In direct contradiction to the mandate in Article 312 of the 1999 constitution, the new law allows the Executive Branch to contract out new debt without legislative approval.
What’s remarkable about this, and so many other, unconstitutional chavista initiatives is just how direct, frontal the violation is. This isn’t a question of interpretation, of gray areas, of stretching words to the outer limits of their plausible meaning. No!
It’s really quite straightforward: the constitution mandates one thing, in plain language; you approve a law that says the exact opposite, in plain language.
It’s total dog-bites-man stuff, I know. It’s “news” only in some highly stylized sense of the word. Still, it feels icky to let it pass without comment.
How’s that for a wad saved for a rainy day… Unbelievable.
Quico, would you care to expand on the regressiveness of this kind of debt, and its relation to oil money, or is that something you don’t want to touch?
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Well, it’s not necessarily regressive, or necessarily bad policy: in theory, it’s imaginable that it could be good policy.
It’s a question of legality. You need parliamentary approval to take on debt, that’s just one of those bedrock legal principles, it dates back to Magna Carta (like the real Magna Carta, the one signed in 1215.)
It’s sort of like a man buying a new car on credit without talking it over with his wife.
“not necessarily regressive” I beg to differ: the debt will not come from taxed money or even using taxed money as collateral. This impliesthat it is money obtained by hawking value from national resources, which implies that the poorest Venezuelan is pitching in the exact same amount of those national resources as the richest Venezuelan. Since the same amount for someone with no income is tantamount to 100% tax, while for someone with a huge income is tantamount to 0% tax, then it is necessarily regressive.
“or necessarily bad policy” I beg to differ: if there is no emergency, going over budget is necessarily bad policy. This is the basis for the parliamentary requirements, to make sure it only is done when a large enough group of elected individuals agree that it is a valid emergency.
“It’s a question of legality” This is just the cherry on top that makes it impossible for it to be good policy. Or do you advocate presidential actions contradicting constitutional explicit limitations as an imaginable good policy in a “thriving” democracy?
I guess your answer is that, no, you won’t expand on the regressiveness of this money, especially as it pertains to oil money. So be it.
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Emm, doesn’t this line in article 318 provide a pretty big exception to what you say is the unambiguity of approving additional indebtedness without legislative approval: “Las operaciones de crédito público requerirán, para su validez, una ley especial que las autorice, SALVO LAS EXCEPCIONES que establezca la ley orgánica.”?
You may not need a Ley Especial (ley paragua), but you still need some form of parliamentary approval…
The law could establish some exceptions as the Constitution allows for it.But in my opinion it would allow for very strictly defined exceptions limited in time and scope to truly extraordinary circumstances such as natural disaster. But such a broad exception to the general rule, that will end up making the exception the norm, is I think unconstitutional.
Even if it were legal, the whole thing is si fuzzy that it says that this new debt would be issued in this manner whenever there were “unforeseen circumstances” and “To take care of” (atender) social investment, defense and food sovereignty i.e. almost for everything.
Maybe in keeping with his threat yesterday to expropriate businesses that support the opposition he’ll need some millioncitas to pay the bill
Because that superhypermega reelection campign ain’t gonna pay itself.
I think the constitutional principle flows, more correctly, from the Ship Money case, in which Parliament insisted that the government could not run, and wars not be undertaken, without the passing of a motion for supply by Parliament.
James the First steadfastly refused to accept this principle, which led to his successor having his head judicially removed from his shoulders.
A happy ending if there was one…
If only the Stuarts had had oil, they could have bought more remounts and more oh-so-sweet threads.
Chavez is demonstrating that congress is irrelevant, Its been so since 2,002
hes just saying what many Venezuelans don’t want to hear, the country is a
dictatorship.
People like President Rafael Caldera’s son wrings his hands in
congress and says how Chavez is not democratic?
Chavez is like a bank robber who after failing to rob it is
made CEO Venezuelans have to stew in their own mess
Speaking about Congress, does anyone think that the opposition should had been more vocal or oppose the impeachment of Justice Aponte Aponte? The government needed a supermajority to impeach him. In my opinion the opposition made the whole thing way to easy for the government. Aponte Aponte is surely not the only Justice engaded in vainas raras. Who knows who wanted to screw him over and made the moral Council sanction him.
Shouldn’t be the role of the opposition to point out that selectively punishing someone for corruption in a government that’s full of thieves is amoral or perhaps demanding an investigation of all the Justices to agree to the impeachment? Compare what Aponte did with what the Constitutional Chamber did regarding the primaries and what is more perverted taking money from a drug dealer or using its power as Judges to terrorize the population?
I agree with you that they should have done better not just in this case, but in general.
I agree, its almost as if they weren’t there.
It’s not easy to explain: They have not taken advantage of the possibilities that being in the Assembly brings. FWIW, the parliament has been mostly, if not completely emasculated by Chavez. Not just by the Enabling Law, but by reducing the human, technical, logistical and financial resources for the deputies and the comissions so they can’t do their job. All this with the full compliance of PSUV deputies, who look like they’re happy of getting paid without do work or even show up, like Francisco Ameliach.
I know its not at all their fault, but they never take advantage of the few powers they have. In the case of Aponte, the opposition fails to see the larger picture. When they were voting on the issue they request to investigate who else was linked with Makled. But the whole point of the thing is that a government full of shamelessly corrupt officials sanctioning someone for corruption is a huge hypocrisy, and that similar or worst things happen at the TSJ without punishment.
I agree with you on that. They could do it better. No question. A couple of loud speeches is not enough.
Me permito una interpretación más política que legal o incluso económica de esta decisión de Chávez. Al no ponerle límite a la capacidad de endeudamiento del gobierno, Chávez y sus secuaces se están asegurando el acceso a recursos ad hoc para responder a las necesidades tácticas de la campaña electoral, siempre en la línea estratégica de “comprar votos”. Se quitan de encima el “pesado” y “lento” proceso de aprobaciones legislativas y otras “minucias” legales, para atender de forma más eficaz y rápida la necesidad de contar con todos los recursos necesarios para afrontar el escenario electoral sin Chávez o con un Chávez muy disminuido. Esta decisión tiene el “tufillo” del apuro, de la corredera, ante una posibilidad que parece no tan lejana.
Aquí hay quienes piensan que repartir dinero sí gana elecciones:
http://www.globovision.com/news.php?nid=224396
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Exactly. And it works. The Datanalisis poll just confirms it. That’s the sad part.
I agree that it works, but I disagree it’s the sad part. I, on the contrary, see it as the ultimate opportunity. We have the chance to offer the most economically sound public policy and disguise it as populism. We win the election AND fix the economy AND prevent it from this situation from happening again. When do you get a chance like that?
How often do you get the right thing in a crisis to be the popular offer while making abusers of power weaker by it? Oh, and eliminate poverty…
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Looking it from that perspective…
Noone dares ask questions to Chavez for his response to defend himself-example.
We are aware of China and Iran cooperating in the cybermonitoring of their own people
and cyberterrorism attacks- and Cuba has been involved-which leads to the question:
Everyone knows Chavez has placed the Cubans strategically in charge of ID’s and
is Chavez buying equipment from China for these purposes?
There are so many things like this-that are in a “gray area” and we know nothing or very little
and if the military is involved -they are not talking.
Somehow the voters should be made aware of this type of behavior and what the future holds
under this type of government..
Well, I think someone like Diego Arria should say that any bond issues without approval should not be recognized by future administrations…
I would be curious to know the last time the TSJ ruled against the government on a significant issue. Or any issue.
I see, Quico, that you are, at least formally, operating under the assumption that Venezuela is still some kind of Republic, even if a dysfunctional one.
Venezuela is now an “Adjective” Republic, a Republic with some rather stupid ideological adjective (never mind if it means anything, at all!) before the Republic noun. Translation from the Stupidspeak of the jerks who invented the adjective: NOT a Republic in any meaningful sense.
I would almost say, taking an old example, that Caesar is trying on and deciding on a crown, and that educated and polite people call it Republic as an euphemism. Caesar’s supporters make no bones about it.