http://english.eluniversal.com/2011/06/06/brazilian-lawyers-claim-that-chavez-controls-the-judiciary.shtml Within the framework of the visit of President Hugo Chávez to Brazil, Diario do Comercio published a report on the irregularities in the judicial system in Venezuela.
Brazilian human rights activists claimed that Chávez controls the Judiciary. They also said that "judges who make decisions against the government's interests are harassed and dismissed in Venezuela."
They mentioned the cases of Judge María Lourdes Afiuni, and engineer Alejandro Peña Esclusa, and said that they are the most prominent cases of human rights violations. According to the signatories of the statement, Afiuni and Peña Esclusa are political prisoners of Chávez's government.