—Angello Javier Peña Barrios, Master of Advanced Studies in Human Rights from the Inter-American Academy of Human Rights, Mexico; Researcher at Universidad de Los Andes, Venezuela
The National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) in Venezuela is the Defensoría del Pueblo (DP or Ombudsperson). This DP was established by the 1999 National Constitution as an autonomous constitutional body, which in the academic literature is described as part of the institutions of the “fourth branch” and, in this specific case, as one of the institutions of “citizen power.” According to the Venezuelan Constitution, the DP is in charge of promoting, defending, and monitoring the rights and guarantees established in the Constitution and in human rights treaties, in addition to defending the legitimate, collective, and diffuse interests of the citizens (Article 280).
In theory, the DP constitutes an autonomous constitutional body designed to function as an effective counterweight to potential abuses of state power in the field of human rights. Nevertheless, more than two decades after its formal establishment, the empirical reality reveals an institution that has been profoundly compromised by the absence of genuine independence, politicization, and systematic inaction in the face of the grave human rights violations.
On 25 February 2026, the Ombudsperson, Alfredo Ruiz Angulo, submitted his resignation to the National Assembly. The legislative branch promptly appointed Tarek William Saab as interim Ombudsperson, pending the selection of a permanent replacement. In this post, I examine the historical origins of the DP, its institutional design as established by the Constitution and developed through special legislation, and the profound lack of independence that has caused its malfunctioning.
Origins
The DP, also known in contemporary terminology as the Ombudsperson, traces its origins to the Scandinavian model, and more specifically to the Swedish Ombudsman established in 1809. Its foundational purpose was to supervise maladministration within the public sector by means of independent investigations, the issuance of non-binding recommendations to the government, and its complementary role as a mechanism to the judiciary. This institutional model demonstrated notable effectiveness and subsequently spread across much of Latin America, albeit with significant local adaptations. In Venezuela, the most distant constitutional precedent appears in the 1961 Constitution, which, while not fully disregarding the institution, incorporated only a partial and hybrid version of it through the design of the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
However, the hybrid model—which assigned both criminal prosecution and some administrative oversight functions to the Public Prosecutor’s Office—proved ineffective in fully performing the tasks of an Ombudsperson. Another preliminary attempt was the “complaints and claims officer” created in 1972 by the National Executive, but it lacked autonomy and independence, and it never attained the status of a human rights defender. In 1980, the establishment of the Latin American Institute of the Ombudsman in Caracas generated academic and political arguments that facilitated its formal incorporation into the 1999 Constitution.
That Constitution marks the formal constitutional birth of the DP and formed part of a broader regional wave of strengthening NHRIs, while simultaneously addressing the domestic imperative of establishing robust mechanisms of citizen oversight vis-à-vis state power.
The institutional design
The primary provisions regarding the DP are found in the Constitution, the Organic Law of the Defensoría del Pueblo (LODP), and its Internal Regulations on Organization and Functioning. Together with the Prosecutor General and the Comptroller General of the Republic, the DP constitutes one of the three organs that comprise the “citizen power” (poder ciudadano), which the 1999 Constitution elevates to the status of an additional branch alongside the traditional tripartite division of power. In theory, these bodies enjoy functional, financial, and administrative independence and autonomy (Article 273 of the Constitution) and act as a balance to the other branches of government.
The Defender of the People is the head of the DP and is appointed by the Venezuelan National Assembly with a qualified majority of two-thirds of MPs for a single seven-year term. Eligibility requirements emphasize “manifest and proven competence in human rights matters” (Article 280 of the Constitution). The Defender enjoys immunity in the exercise of their functions, and the recommendations and observations issued are not subject to judicial review (Article 282 of the Constitution). Annually, the Ombudsperson is under an obligation to produce a report on the human rights situation, the functioning of the public administration, and public services (paragraph 5 of Article 29 and 30 of the LODP).
The competences of the DP, as enumerated in Article 15 of the LODP, are remarkably broad and extend to virtually any matter concerning the protection and promotion of human rights. These include initiating investigations, filing judicial actions, inspecting state bodies and other institutions, reporting non-compliant officials, overseeing public services, promoting the ratification of international human rights treaties, and proposing legislative reforms.
Most notably, the DP may urge the Prosecutor General to initiate criminal proceedings or request that the Republican Moral Council impose sanctions on public officials responsible for human rights violations (Article 29 of the LODP). The Council serves as the collective expression of the citizen power and comprises three independent high officials who head autonomous constitutional bodies: the Ombudsperson, the Prosecutor General, and the Comptroller General. In practical terms, its primary role is to prevent, investigate, and sanction conduct that undermines public ethics and administrative morality.
In principle, this makes for a robust institutional design—non-coercive yet highly influential—whose purpose is to resolve human rights issues through alternative channels to judicial review, thereby functioning as an allied institution in the protection of human rights.
The erosion of independence
Despite the strong institutional framework described above, the DP has suffered a severe crisis of credibility and independence. Since 2016, the Venezuelan institution has held “B” status within the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI), which means that it does not fully comply with the Paris Principles—the international standards for NHRIs. Currently, Venezuela shares this downgraded status with only one other country in the Americas: Nicaragua.
The downgrade occurred under the leadership of Tarek William Saab and was based on a lack of real and perceived independence, as well as the inability of the DP to fully exercise its powers and criticize abuses by the executive branch. The GANHRI Sub-Committee on Accreditation (SCA) analyzed the performance of Gabriela del Mar Ramírez (2007–2014) and Tarek William Saab (2014–2017), highlighting the publication by both / the latter of public statements of political affinity with the government and the absence of critical opinions or institutional actions in response to evident human rights violations.
For example, in 2012 the executive branch denounced the American Convention on Human Rights and unilaterally withdrew from the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights through an unconstitutional procedure—a decision taken amid a broader weakening of the rule of law in Venezuela. Notably, the Ombudsperson’s office remained silent on this matter, despite its critical importance for access to international justice and the progressive of human rights in Venezuela.
Subsequently, Alfredo Ruiz Angulo became the office holder, who was described by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela (FFMV) as having a “de facto assumption” as Ombudsperson (para. 1465) due to his irregular appointment. His designation in 2017 was marked by an improper use of concepts related to constituent power —the abusive borrowing of ideas related to constituent power, which bypassed the constitutionally authorized National Assembly. This undermined the institution’s legitimacy and independence from the beginning.
The institution has remained under Angulo’s leadership from that time onward. In the report of the 46th session of the GANHRI SCA, published in 2025, that international body determined that the Venezuelan DP “is operating in a manner that seriously compromises its independence” and reiterated that the DP “has not demonstrated compliance with the minimum requirements of the Paris Principles” (p. 35). It further recommended the removal of the DP’s accreditation as a NHRI, considering that the institution should receive a downgrade even more severe than B status. Such a measure would entail the loss of its accreditation status and generate even greater international discrediting due to the erosion of its independence.
As mentioned earlier, on February 25th 2026, Alfredo Ruiz Angulo submitted his resignation as head of the DP. On the same date, Tarek William Saab—who had previously been in charge during the institution’s downgrade to B status—assumed the role of interim Defender, pending the National Assembly’s imminent appointment of a new Defender.
Angulo’s resignation was not a direct result of scrutiny over the institution’s lack of independence. Rather, the move appears more closely linked to the broader institutional readjustments occurring under the post-Maduro interim government led by Delcy Rodríguez.
Passivity as a consequence of institutional capture
The most evident consequence of the lack of independence is the DP’s passivity in addressing human rights violations. This institutional behavior has been extensively documented by international organizations monitoring the human rights situation in Venezuela.
The lack of independence has resulted in repeated failures of this institution to fulfill constitutional powers and duties. The DP did not submit annual reports in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022, or 2025, as required by the LODP. The reports that were submitted have been criticized by the FFMV for their lack of specific information on the status of complaints, the profile of victims, and the concrete actions taken. The FFMV notes that “the activities reported by the Ombudsman’s Office in relation to the large numbers of complaints it received fall short of fulfilling its constitutional role to further, defend and oversee rights and guarantees established under the Constitution and in human rights treaties” (para. 406)
In the same way, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) concurs with this assessment, noting that the DP’s inaction contributes to impunity and the repetition of violations. For example, in 2021, the OHCHR documented that none of the 12 formal complaints filed by civil society organizations regarding access to public services received an official response, thereby generating citizen discouragement and fear of reprisals (para. 51). The FFMV concluded that the DP:
has routinely and deliberately failed to take action regarding gross violations of human rights, either ex officio or in response to requests presented by the relatives and representatives of the victims, including in the cases documented in this conference room paper. From the Mission’s perspective, the lack of action reflects the bias and lack of independence of the Ombudsperson Ruíz Angulo, and that the Defensoría del Pueblo has been used in a partisan and selective manner, in contravention of his mandate. (para. 1490)
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, in its 2023 annual report, similarly found that autonomous constitutional bodies such as the DP had failed to act with due diligence in human rights matters. This situation was considered to be the result of “the lack of independence of these institutions from the government” (para. 45).
For example, the FFMV has found reasonable grounds to believe that certain violations constitute the crime against humanity of persecution. This evidence forms the basis for the International Criminal Court Prosecutor’s ongoing investigation into crimes against humanity in the situation in Venezuela I. Nevertheless, the Ombudsperson, like his predecessors, has assumed a public profile of defending government actions, thereby minimizing the country’s human rights challenges, and has adopted a denialist stance regarding serious violations committed during the 2014, 2017, and 2019 protests (FFMV, para. 1469). That period was characterized by profound social discontent and intense international scrutiny.
This systematic inaction discourages civil society from filing complaints, perpetuates impunity, and undermines confidence in autonomous constitutional bodies. The progressive erosion of the DP’s independence has reduced the institution to a passive and—and, at times, complicit—actor in the face of widespread human rights violations.
The DP requires profound reforms to avoid losing its accreditation as a NHRI under international standards, particularly the Paris Principles. The current political context offers a timely opportunity to appoint an Ombudsperson with proven independence and recognized expertise in human rights, capable of implementing these necessary changes. This appointment would constitute the first step toward rebuilding public trust and institutional legitimacy, as emphasized by the UN Special Rapporteurs.
Suggested citation: Angello Javier Peña Barrios, The Erosion of the National Human Rights Institution in Venezuela, Int’l J. Const. L. Blog, May 6, 2026, at: http://www.iconnectblog.com/the-erosion-of-the-national-human-rights-institution-in-venezuela/