Independencia del poder judicial y Estado de Derecho en América Latina: los casos de Argentina y Venezuela

Abstract

After more than a decade of democratic transitional regimes, many countries in Latn America still have a Judiciary that lacks the mnimum independence from political power in order to give credibility to its function. The explanation to this situation must not be sought so much in the defects of the institutional design -evident at times-, but rather in the lack of incentives offered to political actora stick to their commitment to follow the garanties that protect the independence of Judicial power. Building on Argentine and Venezuela cases, the authors argue that incentives can only be effective when political actora are capable of solving the cooperation problema of the past, which have prevented them from creating and enforcing atable and self-sustained constitutional designs.