I say No to the Reform of the Law of Registries and Notaries. And you?

Almost two months after the approval of the Reform of the Registries and Notaries Law in Venezuela, and after reading the multiple comments of hundreds of personalities from the legal world and the Public Accountants and Lawyers' guilds, we only know that some individuals brought a joint action for annulment for unconstitutionality of said reform. However, there is no statement from the highest court of the republic, nor government spokespersons who speak about it. In fact there is a deep silence for several days now even from the jaws of our guilds.

It is necessary for the highest court to rule on this, since from my clear point of view as a jurist we are facing a constitutional aberration, especially in the fact that our Constitution states that only by means of the law can amounts of fees and taxes be created and in said The reform gives this power to a person so that, based on their criteria, they impose the tariff rates for each act to be carried out in the registries and notaries of the country. In fact, once the approval of said reform was published in the official gazette, the National Director of the Registry and Notary Service issued the Administrative Ruling that imposes the new rates set in the government's pseudo-cryptocurrency called "Petro" and whose value is the approximate equivalent to the price of a barrel of Venezuelan oil.

Now, as we know, the only legal tender in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is the Bolívar, a currency that in the last 12 years has undergone three reconversion processes due to hyperinflation induced by bad policies of both the government and a sector of the opposition. What is true is that the use of a currency other than the Bolívar in terms of tax contributions of any kind is unconstitutional. The only way to impose this law is to amend the Constitution and replace the Bolívar as legal tender. , as was done in El Salvador when bitcoin was legalized.

In addition, we must also probe the problems that the country already presents due to its economic situation and that with the application of this law reform plus others such as the Large Transactions Tax Law and its recent reform come to hit the pocket not only of companies, but of ordinary citizens who see how it is now difficult for them to legalize or give public faith to any act or document necessary for the proper development of their assets and even their work.

This reform was added to another series of government measures that make it impossible to develop commercial activity in Venezuela. In turn, they scare away national and foreign investment and encourage the growth of the informal economy in the country.

An open economy, which seeks national and foreign investment, must facilitate all procedures and records to define a regime that protects investment.

That is why it is urgent not to stand idly by and continue promoting actions before the Supreme Court of Justice, which, although it is true, is in the hands of judges who are complacent with the executive power and are the evidence of a decadent republic without autonomy of powers, is no less true that every day they are in the magnifying glass of national and international public opinion.

@JimmyJQB.