The rule of law in democracy and the rule of defenselessness in a dictatorship

By: Carlos Sánchez Berzaín - 22/02/2024

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The practice and protection of human rights and basic individual freedoms is only possible with the implementation of the “rule of law” that is “the eminence of the law” as an essential component of democracy that in a dictatorship is supplanted by the “eminence of terror” that subjects human beings into a “state of defenselessness.”

The rule of law is that condition in which “all citizens and institutions of a country, state, or community are held accountable before these same laws that are publicly disclosed, including authorities and anyone who wields governmental power.” It is “the State subjected to the law, the governmental power, and any activity regulated and controlled by the law.” This principle of universal application is the result of the long fight of the human being for freedom, founded on equality before the law and guaranteed by the institutionality of the government to prevent the oppressive power of criminals wielding power.

The state of defenselessness “is that situation of persons who are scattered, unprotected, underprivileged, vulnerable, abandoned, lack defense and protection and are unduly prevented or limited to the defense of their rights.” The legal concept of defenselessness simply referred to as a legal procedural situation, has been expanded to a concept of general character that describes a situation of vulnerability, unprotection, and helplessness of entire nations subjected to dictatorial regimes who are accepted -as if they were legitimate governments- in the international community.

In States where there is the rule of law, rulers and those who are governed are subjected to the enforcement of the laws, protected by the separation and independence of the branches of government in which the Legislative Branch has the legitimacy of the popular vote and the political plurality and the Judicial Branch the trust of the citizenry due to the suitability and capacity of its members, all of whom subject to the rule of accountability and the scrutiny of the free press.

The state of helplessness is the consequence of organized crime groups wielding power indefinitely through the commission of periodic and continued criminal acts that comprise “State-terrorism” that is “the use of illegitimate methods, commission of crimes by a government with the objective to instill fear or terror in the civilian population in order to reach its objectives or promote behaviors that would -otherwise- not occur by any other means.”

Democracy is only the system that encompasses a set of conditions for a free life, limiting the exercise of power under the compliance of laws. This is why, the Interamerican Democratic Charter highlights, as the essential components of democracy, “the respect for human rights and basic freedoms; the unhindered access to power and its exercise subject to the rule of law; the holding of free and fair elections based on universal suffrage concepts of secrecy as an expression of the peoples’ sovereignty, the regime of plurality of political parties and organizations, and the separation and independence of the branches of government.”

The essential components of democracy define -by singling out the differences- the components of dictatorships. The latter are recognized by; the violation of human rights and individual basic freedoms, the supplantation of the rule of law with State-terrorism, the impossibility of holding free and fair elections because they have done away with universal suffrage principles, the tendency or existence of a unique/sole political party with a “functional” opposition, and the concentration of all power with subordinated legislatures and despicable judges.

The situation the peoples from Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua live under is that of a “state of defenselessness.” A brief recount of their daily misery is; the political prisoners, exile, judicialized persecutions, the revolving door for prisoners, the absolute concentration of all power, the elimination of the free press, torture, assassinations, unjust and despicable sentences, corruption, the pillaging of natural resources, the surrendering to the global dictatorial system, the human trafficking, forced migrations, narco-States, and so much more.

The helplessness, abandonment, lack of protection, and absolute impossibility of defense that the people from Cuba have today, under a dictatorship that has taken it to famine and desperation, has gone from notorious to shameful. Governments such as Lula from Brazil, Lopez Obrador from Mexico, Petro from Colombia, Boric from Chile, and others, deliberately ignore the fulfillment of their international obligations to end this “state of helplessness.”

The situation of helplessness and vulnerability the people from Venezuela endure is appalling. Their only candidate from the true opposition, Maria Corina Machado, is victim of the violation of her human rights -that is in essence the human rights of all Venezuelans- while the regime imprisons, persecutes, and tortures journalists, human rights’ defenders, and members of the opposition. Shamefully, beyond “pronouncements,” democratic leaders from the region and the world continue co-existing with this “state of defenselessness.”

The cases of Bolivia and Nicaragua are no less, wherein the “state of defenselessness” continues taking innocent people to confess crimes they have not committed and to accept convictions or exile to protect their life and that of their families.

*Attorney & Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy.

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».