The lawyer and legal advisor of Vente Venezuela, Omar Mora Tosta, This Sunday, he demanded an exhaustive investigation into the revelations made by the former judge of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), Bárbara Gabriela César Sieroconsidering that it is essential to get to the bottom of the case to guarantee re-institutionalization and fully restore the political rights of María Corina Machado.
The jurist warned, during an interview with Venevisión, that the former magistrate’s allegations show structural defects in the administration of Venezuelan justice that must be definitively eradicated to make way for a truly autonomous system.
“This has to be investigated and reach its ultimate consequences because what this former magistrate alleges is very serious. This is the type of Judiciary that we do not want in Venezuela. That is precisely why we have insisted on this process of re-institutionalization of the country taking place (…) Venezuela needs strengthened, independent institutions, where a judge will never again receive pressure of this nature”Mora stressed.
Political disqualification and procedural vice
When addressing the legal situation that affects the opposition leader, Mora Tosta emphasized that the former judge’s statement exposes the illegitimacy of the administrative measures issued against her.
He argued that the current context of the country demands correcting decisions that lack legal and constitutional support.
“As we are in a new stage in Venezuela, where dialogue and harmony are being sought in the country, I believe that this should call for reflection and have the only solution that this situation that has arisen has, which is the absolute nullity of that decision, which, by the way, was already null and void because we remember that the Comptroller General of Venezuela cannot disqualify anyone. Political disqualification is an accessory penalty after a criminal process where the guarantees to due process, to the right to defense”, the specialist detailed.
The lawyer reiterated the urgency of putting an end to the mechanisms of coercion on the administrators of justice.
“It has been happening for a long time and unfortunately that has to stop, as does a Judiciary where judges cannot decide according to rights and not under pressure, that has to end,” Mora pointed out.
Complaint from the former magistrate
Bárbara César Siero, former judge of the TSJ, denounced on Tuesday that she was coerced to sign sentences of political disqualifications, among them that of María Corina Machado, who was prevented from being a presidential candidate in the 2024 elections.
Through a video and a letter published on his social networks, César Siero reported that on December 15, 2023, Machado filed a complaint with the TSJ to review the disqualification measure imposed on him by the Comptroller’s Office years before.
“Parallel to that event, that same day my two brothers, Lieutenant Colonel Guillermo Enrique César Siero, Major Guillermo Henry César Siero, and my sister-in-law, Major Diana Desirée Victoria Justo, were arbitrarily detained by officials of the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence”he added.
The judge did not know the place of confinement of her relatives, she had no communication with them and said that she was unaware of the crimes they were accused of.
“From then on, my three relatives were used to coerce me as a magistrate and vice president of the Political-Administrative Chamber of the TSJ, since I was competent to decide on the political destiny of the candidates”he stressed.
