The use and perversion of originating constituent power in Venezuela (1999-2019)

Abstract

The aim of the study is to examine the exercise of originating constituent power in Venezuela between 1999 and 2019, through the lens of the doctrine of constituent power and in order to examine its influence in this praxis. In particular, the study examines the 1999 constituent experience, and the activation of originating constituent power in 2017 by President Maduro, to finally arrive at the idea that the design of Art. 347 of the 1999 Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela could be at the root of the political-institutional dysfunction the country suffers from today, as it could serve a latent political temptation to reinvent the constitutional wheel.