The Supreme Court of Justice of Venezuela was

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

's highest court until the 1999

Constitution of Venezuela The Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, Constitución de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela (CRBV)) is the current and twenty-sixth constitution of Venezuela. It was drafted in mid-1999 by a constituent assembly that h ...

replaced it with the Supreme Tribunal of Justice. Under the

1961 Constitution of Venezuela Events January * January 3 ** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba ( Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015). ** Aero Flight 311 ...

, Supreme Court justices were elected by joint session of Congress (

Venezuelan Senate The Senate of Venezuela was the upper house of Venezuela's legislature under its 1961 constitution. Under the 1999 constitution, the bicameral system was replaced by the unicameral National Assembly of Venezuela. However, since 1999 the former cham ...

and

Venezuelan Chamber of Deputies The Chamber of Deputies () was the lower house of Venezuela's legislative under its 1961 constitution; the Venezuelan Senate was the upper house. Under the 1999 constitution, the bicameral system was replaced by the unicameral National Assembly o ...

) to nine-year terms, with a third of the court renewed every three years. Lower court judges were initially appointed by the

President of Venezuela The president of Venezuela ( es, Presidente de Venezuela), officially known as the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, Presidente de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is the head of state and head of government in Ven ...

in combination with an administrative arm of the Court, but during the 1969-74 term of

Rafael Caldera Rafael Antonio Caldera Rodríguez ( (); 24 January 1916 – 24 December 2009), twice elected the president of Venezuela, served for two five-year terms (1969–1974 and 1994–1999), becoming the longest serving democratically elected leade ...

, the opposition-dominated Congress moved appointment powers to a Judicial Council with representatives of all three branches of government, but with a legislative majority.Crisp, Brian F. (1998),
Presidential Decree Authority in Venezuela
, in John M. Carey and Matthew Soberg Shugart (eds, 1998), ''Executive decree authority'',

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

. p144 In 1992 "The Court found itself greatly discredited because of its refusal to act on charges of corruption against former president

Jaime Lusinchi Jaime Ramón Lusinchi (27 May 1924 – 21 May 2014) was a Venezuelan politician who was the president of Venezuela from 1984 to 1989. His term was characterized by an economic crisis, growth of the external debt, populist policies, currency dep ...

(1984–1989) and others. Six of the Supreme Court's 15 justices stepped down in the face of a national campaign calling for the resignation of the entire Court. Under considerable pressure during the process of selecting their replacements, Congress discarded the traditional practice of choosing judges closely identified with Venezuela's two largest parties, Acción Democrática (AD) and the social Christian Copei, on the basis of informal agreements. Congress committed itself to selecting independents, and even accepted nominations from lawyers' associations and law schools throughout the country. "Although most of the judges we chose", says Copei's national congressman Luis Guevara León, "were really not 'independent' -- that is difficult to be here in Venezuela -- they were for the first time relatively independent of their respective parties." Five of these six new judges voted in favor of

Pérez Pérez, or Perez as most commonly written in English, is a Castilian Spanish surname. Perez (pronounced Peretz, see below) is also common in people of Sephardic Jewish descent and is the 4th most common surname in Israel, most common surname not o ...

' indictment. In August, all six voted to press charges against Lusinchi, after the court had sat on the request for his indictment for two years." Steve Ellner, "A Tolerance Worn Thin Corruption in the Age of Austerity", NACLA Report on the Americas 27.3 (1993): 14

References

{{Americas topic, Supreme Court of, title=Supreme Courts of the Americas, countries_only=yes Supreme Tribunal of Justice (Venezuela) 1999 disestablishments in Venezuela