The law, the law and the law
By: Luis Beltrán Guerra G. - 31/08/2025
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It is almost utopian to affirm that we all know what “law” is, both in regard to its nature, the spontaneous one, the one that God offered us (natural law), and with respect to society, the hypothesis of the so-called “positive law”, in principle, with a determining vocation to establish a republic or something similar, a purpose for which we have fought, remaining on more than one occasion, unfortunately, “in an attempt”.
But we also know that laws, despite their good sense and sound intentions, are not always observed, a maxim that has fueled "sarcasm" for disconsolate assessments, among others: 1. "Every law has its killer law," 2. There are few cases in which, both in terms of its design and its application, it does not benefit the powerful, 3. Where there is little justice, it is dangerous to be right, 4. It happens with laws like with sausages, it is better not to see how they are made, and 5. Every judge has his price." Let us keep in mind that these are not the only ones; there are many more, and they are expressed with quite a few bad words. Frustration, frustration, and frustration.
These satirical assessments are, unfortunately, those that have accompanied and continue, to an crescendo, the laws, the most defining component for the smooth running and consolidation of peoples in true republics. For the AI, "true states" are those that embody the fundamental principles of republican government, such as popular sovereignty, the separation of powers, the rule of law and equal citizenship, and where their rulers genuinely represent the public interest, in contrast to those who, despite calling themselves republics, concentrate power, abuse it or act against individual freedoms and rights. In our opinion, "those typified by disciplining the exercise of popular sovereignty through suffrage and under the rule of a constitution, also called "fundamental text, magna carta and law of laws", in recognition of its highest degree with respect to: 1. The exercise and purposes of political power, 2. The separation of powers (executive, legislative and judicial) for the sake of balance and stability between them and 3. The Promoting citizen participation through suffrage and other mechanisms. We must point out that reference must also be made to the "compulsion" of public authorities to implement laws aimed at balanced economic equality and the pursuit of acceptable levels of social justice. Without this commitment, it must be clear that considerations 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 above will not only remain in force, but would also become much more burdensome, with negative consequences. Republics, like the democracies they advocate, would remain ephemeral. And never permanent. The so-called "paper" republics will continue.
It is read, by the way, that "it is not about replacing formal democracy with material or economic democracy, but rather complementing it, adding to traditional democracy the modern socioeconomic freedoms it lacks," in order to unequivocally affirm that "the formal nature of democracy must go hand in hand with general well-being."
We must also point out that the points 1 to 5 above continue to shake the law as a mechanism for peace between one another and for the progress of peoples. German jurists, which is quite significant given the Germans' penchant for strict adherence to the rules, are credited with having written "that if a law descends to convince with respect to the rectitude and appropriateness of its mandates, it renounces obedience when it falls short of the benefits of the law for its recipients, creating uncertainty, doubt, and relative satisfaction. Therefore, "its observance, rather than being respected, is overlapped." Therefore, the legal text cannot have the elliptical form of an argument, nor the softness of advice, but rather the harshness of military commands." Could it be, as would be appropriate to demand, if there is a determining factor, in principle, congenital, related to "the lack of citizen vocation for legislative observance?", a path that would lead to submersion in those countries whose attempts to become republics have not been successful. And we would ask, regarding a probable "cause/effect" connection, if it has been the lack of "military harshness" in legal precepts that has stimulated "the illegal seizure of power by a political faction, a political party, a sect, or a rebel or military group, precisely, to provide the legal text with "severity and rigor in order for it to be observed, severely sanctioning its transgression. Kindness, affability, and gentleness are rather harmful. In Latin America, where uprisings have not ceased to exist, they are ironically and popularly described as madrugonazos (the "madrugonazos"). In Chile, the military attack of Augusto Pinochet, whose vocation as a dictator could not hide, the qualifications, both scientific and popular, were of a sui generis diversity, among them, “coup, September 11, the dictatorship or military regime and a very particular one “the great avenues” (alluding, of course, sarcastically, to the farewell speech by Salvador Allende, deposed President: “Continue knowing that, much sooner rather than later, “the great avenues” will open through which the free man will walk to build a better society”). We may have inherited it, as perhaps one might ask, from Louis "Bonaparte and from France (1851) and with all its definition: "a violent change of government operated with transgression of constitutional norms, whose actors, sometimes, are the rulers themselves and in others a mixture and even "accompany" with friends from outside and military" and whose history, much misfortune and few achievements are attested by a few. "The law at the mercy of the one who commands more."
Democratic laws are, of course, contrary to those of "totalitarianism," described by some as "the last possible form of domination," the result of an abrupt break with tradition and the transformation of political thought and the criteria of moral judgment into dust. It is rightly written that "in totalitarian tendencies, the State exercises total and undivided power, where there is no freedom or it is highly conditional." The constitutions, laws, and other rules that feed this nomenclature must therefore be described as "dictatorial."
We do not know if it has been the prostitution of terminology, which has been inserted into serious lessons, which has generated an abundant enumeration of laws: "1. Revolutionary and populist, of the most prostituted, 2. Of supply and demand, which are pointed out as those altered by the intervention of governments in the economy, 3. Theoretical, more than precepts they postulate suggestions regarding the management of the State, singularly, in what is associated with the conduction of the economic process, 4. Law of the pendulum, referring to the voters, who tired or disillusioned with a leader or a governing party, look in the opposition forces for probable alternatives, engendering what is known as "the pendulum movement". It is read, for example, that in the United States, with stable democracy, Republicans and Democrats usually alternately emerge victorious, 5. Law of retaliation, typical of primitive times and characterized by those who take justice into their own hands, whose harmful effects were attempted to be mitigated with the formula "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" in favor of a relative proportionality between the damage and the retaliation with respect to the victim, that is, a form of attenuation of the human instinct of revenge, 6. Draconian laws, given the death penalty established for all crimes and even the simplest infractions and 7. The so-called Duverger laws, referring to electoral administration and its propensity for proportional representation that favors the so-called "multiparty system." But keep in mind that the categorization continues, not daring to say ad infinitum, but it must be close to that stage. Proof that the law has been severely shaken. If we were to ask ourselves: Has it fulfilled its purposes? The answer cannot be affirmative. Has it been useful? Of course, but it could have been more.
The distinguished Harvard professor Roberto Mangabeira Unger has been emphatic in his efforts to clarify that the usefulness of the law derives from the social conception according to which it was made (Law in Modern Society, 1976). If we understand you correctly, as we happened to raise in one of the conversations regarding our doctoral thesis at the aforementioned University (published under the title "The Theory of Public Interests in the Constitution"). Then you maintain that it is not the law that defines the social order, but rather the opposite, that is, that it is rather the latter that determines the former.
Given this assessment by such a notable scholar, we are reminded of considerations by fellow Brazilian scholar Emir Sader, who seems to reiterate that "the law" has not had good luck in Latin America, despite the fact that it was populated by democratic political regimes conforming to liberal canons at the beginning of the 21st century. That is, after having been in previous decades "a continent of revolutions" (but in the mouths of each risen leader (our assessment), establishing democracies that, apparently, were here to stay. Regimes supported and legitimized by popular vote on the path to the continent's integration into the liberal democratic model. But unfortunately, Latin America has experienced, most clearly since the mid-1990s, its worst economic and social crisis since the 1930s. Its economies reveal enormous external fragility, and its international integration presents a low profile, both economically and politically. What relationship did democracy have with this situation? A first and hasty response would be to attribute responsibility, in whole or in part, for the crisis of these regimes to the latter. For experts, it is more likely to be attributed to the economic policies and ideology that came to govern the new governments. Another possible response is to consider that both governments and regimes do not correspond to true democracies.
The fate of the law cannot be overstated, and at times it is surprising. This is evidenced by the fact that Carrillo García, a graduate in law and PhD in legal sciences from the Faculty of Law of the Universidad de Oriente in Santiago de Cuba, published the excellent work "Quality of Laws. Some Critical Points" in January-June 2012. Many probably won't believe that in Cuba, where, in principle, there are no laws, a distinguished academic would dare to refute this assertion. Since the title of this essay, "The Law, the Law, and the Law," is ironic, we would ask Carrillo García whether Cuban law is the first, second, or third in the sentence. If I may, I would recommend that he answer "in the third," indicative of disillusionment.
If we were to try to find out what the law is today, grammatically, we would most likely be corrected, because the correct question would be, "What will happen to the law tomorrow?" It would perhaps face a maximization of the setbacks it has encountered over the centuries, plus those that the future would surely hold.
And to conclude, if Venezuelans, currently under strict surveillance by the United States and with the acquiescence of other countries, were asked, "What is the law?", we would most likely answer, "The one they're applying to us."
The reader has the last word.
«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».