Venezuela’s Maduro Needs Parliament’s OK to Leave OAS, Lawmaker Says Latin American Herald Tribune April 27, 2017
CARACAS – The chairman of the Foreign Policy Committee in the Venezuelan National Assembly, opposition lawmaker Luis Florido, said on Thursday that President Nicolas Maduro needs the approval of the legislature to be able to withdraw from the Organization of American States.
The Venezuelan leader “cannot decide unilaterally on Venezuela’s exit from the (OAS), given that that is a decision involving the state and, as such, it must have the approval of the National Assembly,” said Florido, according to a parliamentary press release.
The lawmaker also said that for his country to be able to leave the international body “Article 23 of the Constitution must be modified” and, he added, the way to do that is via an amendment, a reform or “by a national constituent assembly.”
“Thus, the request made by Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez (to withdraw from the body) is absolutely invalid,” he said.
Article 23 establishes that “the treaties, pacts and conventions relating to human rights, signed and ratified by Venezuela, have constitutional rank and prevail in the internal order insofar as they contain rules about their enjoyment and exercise more favorable to those established in this Constitution and in the laws of the Republic.”
The article also says that such treaties “are immediately and directly applicable by the courts and other organs of the Public Branch” of government.
According to the text of the press release, at the next parliamentary session lawmakers will debate a pact to reject Venezuela’s withdrawal from the OAS “considering that it does the country no good and it is not legal to leave this entity that seeks to safeguard the fulfillment of democracy” in the South American nation.
Rodriguez said on Wednesday that Caracas will withdraw from the OAS after the members of the body voted to hold a foreign ministers meeting to discuss the country’s crisis without getting Venezuela’s approval.
The prospective withdrawal is, in Maduro’s judgment, a “gigantic step in breaking with imperial interventionism.” |