The 21st Century socialism is taking legal shape and, therefore, the State is getting stronger. In the opinion of attorney Fernando Fernández, the recent enactment of laws and the discussion of other bills are aimed at consolidating the State hegemony in the economy.

"We have found that all these emerging laws -the law of Indepabis (Institute for Defense of People in the Access to Goods and Services), the social property law, the urban lands law- are creating a legal framework that was supposed to be overcome by the Constitution," Fernández said.

He explained that the legal changes are oriented toward "collectivization" of society to the detriment of the right to private property covered in the Constitution.

"A public policy able to destroy any right, among others, the right to ownership, is against the constitutional duty of the Venezuelan State."

In the forum "Rule of law and economic freedom; bases for prosperity," hosted by the Venezuelan-American Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VenAmCham), the lawyer said that the legal structure championed by the Executive Office is very similar to the constitutional scheme of countries such as Vietnam and Cuba.

Fernández added that these new laws are intended to "criminalize" the private economic activity.

"We see that the whole economic activity is being criminalized, creating new crimes with unfair penalties and undue processes. Now, the administrative authority turned out to be both judge and jury in economic proceedings," the attorney said.

Fernández made reference to the recent reform of the Indepabis law, where "open offenses" were set and give public servants a lot of leeway.

Lawyer Santos Michelena agreed with Fernández. In Michelena's view, the National Assembly (AN) is erecting a legal framework which increasingly punishes the private sector.

"There are plenty of laws which have such extremely regulating, excessively punitive, nature of the State, and at bottom it weakens the principle of private property."
Seizure as punishment
According to Michelena, one of the indicators which show the new legal nature is also in the reform of the Indepabis law, passed last February.

The lawyer said that the law has included expropriation as a potential penalty on noncompliant businessmen, no matter if the Constitution has set a procedure to implement such a measure.

"Envisaging expropriation as penalty endangers the principle of economic freedom."

Michelena thinks that those proposals do not favor domestic economy, as they "discourage" investment.

"Purporting to go beyond cost structure and deal with the idea of the price of things is not in line with reality; it is not beneficial."

Translated by Conchita Delgado