On March 26, 2025, the NGO Acceso a la Justicia published the report “Effective judicial protection and judicial independence of the Supreme Court of Justice in habeas corpus proceedings”, which examines a significant set of decisions by the highest court with the aim of measuring judicial protection and the independence of the system. The research offers a detailed look at how this remedy operates in practice and its impact on the protection of fundamental rights in Venezuela.
The report analyzes a sample of 207 rulings issued by the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) between 2021 and 2023 in which a request was made for the release of a detainee or the cessation of a threat to liberty or personal safety and integrity. The main finding is as eloquent as it is troubling: of the 207 rulings analyzed, the Supreme Court issued the requested protection in only one, and six years after the appeal was filed. This demonstrates the widespread ineffectiveness of habeas corpus, since in the country, as the organization warns, “the probability of being granted tends to zero.” This conclusion reveals the urgent need for an effective response from international protection mechanisms, such as precautionary measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights or the United Nations treaty bodies, and urgent actions from the Special Procedures.
Reviewing some data, it is observed that in 118 decisions (57%), the Constitutional Chamber rejected the writ of protection, in most cases invoking arguments of inadmissibility, such as the existence of “ordinary procedural channels,” “the cessation of the violation,” “the untimely nature of the request,” or “the lack of legitimacy of the applicant or the attorney who presented himself as a private defender.” In 51 cases studied (24.64%), the court did not reject the writ of habeas corpus, nor did it grant it; instead, it requested additional information. In any case, the lack of substantive response emerges as a restrictive pattern. In 10 of the cases analyzed (4.83%), although the Constitutional Court granted the petition in whole or in part, they were not considered favorable decisions, given that “the court merely ordered the lower court to rule on the habeas corpus request.” Regarding these cases, the organization clarifies, it is not possible to set results, as the lower courts stopped publishing their rulings in 2017, so there is room for arbitrariness. However, the TSJ’s practice of denying the requested protection is replicated, under the penalty of sanction, by the lower courts.
Statistics on habeas corpus cases allow them to identify systematic patterns of arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, and abuses in pretrial detention in criminal proceedings and in the execution of release orders. In this regard, the aggrieved bodies are clearly identified. In most of the cases examined (173), habeas corpus was exercised against judges, who the report holds jointly responsible for the arbitrary or unlawful detention alleged by the applicant, and not just state security forces. Prosecutors from the Public Ministry, for their part, were ranked second among those reported as jointly responsible for illegal detentions, with 27 cases. In third place is the scientific police, the Scientific, Criminal and Criminal Investigation Corps (CICPC), with 18 cases.
Without prejudice to the foregoing information, the report highlights that, if the decisions of lower courts had been accessed, it is very likely that it would have been verified that the vast majority of those responsible for arbitrary detentions, whether enorced disappearances or other unlawful forms of deprivation of liberty, are the repressive police and military forces, that is, those repeatedly identified by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission, such as the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin), the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (Dgcim), the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB), or the Bolivarian National Police (PNB).
Another aspect studied concerns the time taken to decide cases. Article 4 of the Organic Law on the Protection of Liberty and Personal Security establishes habeas corpus requests must be decided within a maximum period of 96 hours. However, “the 207 cases investigated showed an average resolution time of 733 days, equivalent to approximately 24 months.” Furthermore, “the data reflects that in 52 cases (25.12%) the Constitutional Court took three years or more to process the case, and of these, 16 trials took five years or more (7.73%), reflecting a significant procedural delay that falls far short of the legal mandate of speed implied by habeas corpus.” Access to Justice reports that other cases show how the Supreme Court has rendered habeas corpus ineffective, referring to those where the deprivation of liberty exceeds due to the expiration of the maximum legal period for detaining a person under trial, without a sentence having been issued (two years, according to the Organic Code of Criminal Procedure). When hearing these cases, the Constitutional Court does not grant release, either because it declares itself incompetent or because the remedies used are inadequate, keeping the person deprived of liberty and failing to achieve judicial protection. The study presents four examples of ineffectiveness in this regard.
Ultimately, habeas corpus in Venezuela is not an effective remedy. The organization holds that this situation is not due to a lack of a legal framework, but rather to its incorrect interpretation and enforcement by the judiciary, starting with the Supreme Court of Justice. In light of these data, AlertaVenezuela calls on the international community—not only international human rights organizations, but also states, donors, civil society, and other actors—to implement complementary programs, policies, and protective measures to address an increasingly imprisoned, disappeared, and tortured population, all aimed at silencing them and strengthening the foundations of a totalitarian dictatorial regime.