A/HRC/19/12 55. Brunei Darussalam commended Venezuela’s efforts to protect human rights, to address poverty and its achievements towards attaining food security, equal access to education, strengthening the cultural institutions, ensuring right to water and social security protection. It also welcomed Venezuela’s cooperation with the United Nations agencies to protect human rights. It made a recommendation. 56. Qatar valued Venezuela’s efforts to protect human rights. It noted its ratification of various human rights instruments and various measures to combat poverty, inequality and social justice. It noted the programmes to protect the rights of women, including the establishment of the ministry for Women and Equality. It welcomed Venezuela’s commitment to the right to education. It acknowledged that the Constitution recognized the rights of indigenous peoples. It made recommendations. 57. Slovenia welcomed, inter alia, the prohibition of corporal punishment of children in all settings. It remained concerned about allegations of ill-treatment and deaths of children in custody and the involvement of children in the worst form of child labour. It also expressed concern about the partiality of judiciary and problems in the enjoyment of freedom of expression. It made recommendations. 58. Viet Nam took positive note of the Government’s important achievements in economic and social development. It also took note of the constructive cooperation between Venezuela and the International Labour Organization (ILO). Viet Nam made recommendations. 59. The Dominican Republic commended Venezuela for the implementation of policies in the field of education particularly designed to develop and promote the right to use information and communication technologies through the Canaima Education Project. It welcomed the launching of the Simon Bolívar satellite marking a milestone in the development of telecommunications, particularly in the fields of medicine and education. It made recommendations. 60. The President of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, Luisa Estela Morales, indicated that the judicial branch enjoyed functional, financial and technological autonomy with a state-of-the-art platform. In other words it was independent as far as its management and administration. The judiciary was composed of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice and 1,929 judges nationwide. 61. Courts specialized in protecting children and adolescents and in preventing violence against women had been established. The latter had resolved 134,492 issues since 2008. Labour courts were 85 per cent effective in resolving issues through conciliation mechanisms that included oral procedures and mandatory mediation. 62. The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Tribunal, the highest interpreter of the Constitution, was charged with guaranteeing individual rights through constitutional protections, and collective and diffuse rights through actions that allowed it to exercise constitutional protection of certain populations in environmental, economic and other matters. 63. The Attorney General, Luisa Ortega Diaz, indicated that the access to justice was a constitutional right and that all people had a right to free, impartial, transparent, autonomous, independent and expedite justice, and, for this purpose there were district attorney’s offices, courts, offices of ombudsmen that received claims; offices that provided care and protection to victims, and offices that provided guidance to citizens, paying special attention to the most vulnerable areas such as children, adolescents, indigenous populations and women. 64. In order to guarantee the defence of human rights, the Public Ministry had specialized prosecutors and a Criminal Unit Against the Violation of Fundamental Rights. 9