Case: Apitz Barbera and others ("Corte Primera de lo Contencioso Administrativo") v Venezuela. Preliminary Objection, Merits, Reparations and Costs

Descriptors: Judicial independence / Right to a impartial Court / Equal conditions for provisional and regular judges / Judicial decision motivation 

In 2000, the Plenary of the Supreme Court of Justice of Venezuela provisionally appointed five magistrates as judges of the First Court of Contentious-Administrative Matters. Subsequently, three years later, they were dismissed for having allegedly committed an inexcusable judicial error, a dismissal before which they filed the mandatory remedies, which were unsuccessful.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights notes that provisional status cannot alter the system of guarantees for judges, and that the dismissal process must be conducted through an impartial procedure. In relation to impartiality and independence, although it does not consider that the absence of impartiality was accredited in the case, it does rule that the appellants were deprived of the review of the impartiality of the judging body. Therefore, it resolves by recognizing the violation of Article 8.1 of the Convention in relation to Article 1.1 and 2 respectively; principle of judicial independence that it considers also violated by the decision's insufficient reasons.

Even with the reforms approved in the Venezuelan administration of justice's system, the Inter-American Court did not proved that the Judicial Power as a whole lacks independence. But although in the specific case of the appellants it does not consider proven that the Executive Power had a direct influence on their dismissal, it does consider, on the contrary, that their dismissal, being discretionary, was ordered without the necessary guarantees to preserve judicial independence, and thus Article 8.1 of the Convention would have been violated in relation to Articles 1.1 and 2 respectively.

Read the decision