A/HRC/45/CRP.11 misappropriation of trillions of dollars of public resources. 213 Many of the accusations relate to crimes involving the State oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, SA. – PDVSA. Different foreign States have sanctioned 195 high-level Venezuelan authorities for human rights violations, drug trafficking and corruption-related activities.214 Former high-ranking officials have denounced widespread corruption in the Maduro Government. 215 1. Interference with the National Assembly 118. When the opposition won two-thirds of seats in December 2015,216 the National Assembly became the only state institution not aligned with President Maduro. Since then, its actions have been thwarted. The Supreme Court of Justice, following requests by the President for constitutional review, consistently struck down laws that the opposition-led National Assembly attempted to pass.217 Laws annulled include a law on reforms to the Law on the Central Bank of Venezuela;218 a law on food and medicine bonuses for pensioners and retirees;219 a law on amnesty and national reconciliation;220 and a law to address the national health crisis.221 119. Several of these have been on the basis of the continued “contempt” with the Supreme Court’s January 2016 judgment regarding the election of deputies from Amazonas state. It was on this base that the Supreme Court also lifted the parliamentary immunity of 32 deputies of the National Assembly. Also as a result of this continued incompliance, since early 2017, the National Assembly has operated without financial support, meaning that members of parliament receive no wages nor have budgets to travel to their constituencies, following a decision of the Supreme Court prohibiting the executive to disburse salaries. 222 120. Through a series of judgments, the Supreme Court has limited the constitutional powers of the National Assembly, leaving few subjects upon which the National Assembly could legislate.223 This comprises all matters covered in the various states of exception issued, 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 28 Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Italy, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Panama, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Spain, Switzerland, Uruguay and the United States). This information was collected and provided to the Mission by Transparency International. Ibid. List of Venezuelan officials sanctioned by Canada, European Union, Panama, Switzerland, the United States and member countries of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR) and drug trafficking, 7 July 2020, document on file with the Mission. See New York Times, El exjefe de inteligencia militar de Venezuela abandona a Maduro y denuncia corrupción y narcotráfico en el gobierno, 21 February 2019, available at: https://www.nytimes.com/es/2019/02/21/espanol/america-latina/venezuela-maduro-hugocarvajal.html. Mr. Carvajal himself is under investigation for drug trafficking. See indictments: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AF5dAo21Kx380IUxLcwbl7YlYXDTGwVs/view and https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1154246/download. Ex Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz posted shared a video on her twitter account of the president of Odebrecht-Venezuela stating that he had agreed to make payments to President Maduro. See tweet: https://twitter.com/lortegadiaz/status/918535944432766977; See also United States District Court, Eastern District Of New York, U.S. Plea Agreement v. Odebrecht S.A., Defendant, available at: https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/919916/download. See also https://armando.info/Series/Details/25. The MUD received 65.27 per cent, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela – PSUV) received 32.93 per cent and the Indigenous Representation party (Representación Indígena) received 1.80 per cent of the vote. See National Electoral Council, results of the 2015 election of the National Assembly, available at: http://www.cne.gob.ve/resultado_asamblea2015/r/0/reg_000000.html?. See compilation by Acceso a la Justicia, available at: https://www.accesoalajusticia.org/wpcontent/uploads/2020/05/Cuadro-TSJ-vs-AN-127-sentencias-1-1.pdf. Judgment No. 259 of 31 March 2016. Judgment No. 327 of 28 April 2016. Judgment No. 411 of 19 May 2016. Judgment No. 460 of 9 June 2016. Judgment No. 5 of 19 January 2017, available at: https://www.accesoalajusticia.org/wpcontent/uploads/2017/01/SC-N%C2%BA-05-19-01-2017.pdf. The competencies of the National Assembly are listed in article 187 of the 1999 Constitution.

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