Weekly Report - 13 August 2026 (WR-26-32)

Judge María Lourdes Afiuni was released on 7 August after what Venezuela’s opposition figurehead, María Corina Machado, described as “16 long and tortuous years of injustice”. Former president Hugo Chávez (1999-2013) ordered Afiuni’s arrest and “the maximum sentence…30 years in prison” in December 2009 after she released a banker accused of flouting currency exchange controls on conditional bail – who promptly fled. It was one of the most egregious examples of Chávez’s authoritarian rule. His subversion of the rule of law served to cow any other independent-minded justices, ensuring that the judiciary was neutered and became a pliant appendage of his government.