Rogelio Perez Perdomo. “Lawyers and Political Liberalism in Venezuela.” In Fighting for Political Freedom: Comparative Studies of the Legal Complex and Political Liberalism. Edited by Terence C. Halliday, Lucien Karpik, and Malcolm M. Feeley, pp. 345-360, Oxford, U.K: Hart Publishing, 2007.

This chapter analyzes the prosecution of three prominent Venezuelan jurists, Cecilia Sosa, Allan Brewer-Carías, and Carlos Ayala Corao, as a case study of how legal professionals can become entangled in political struggles within backsliding democracies. All three are respected legal scholars and former leaders in Venezuela’s legal institutions, yet they were accused of conspiracy in connection with the 2002 attempted coup that briefly ousted President Hugo Chávez and dissolved constitutional bodies. The chapter situates these prosecutions within a broader inquiry into the political role of lawyers as part of the intellectual elite in societies where democratic norms are weakening.

Framed in terms of political liberalism, a moderate state that guarantees individual freedoms and subjects governmental power to constitutional limits, the chapter interrogates whether lawyers of such stature could genuinely participate in actions contrary to constitutional order, or whether the charges reflect the politicization of the legal profession. It highlights how, in backsliding democracies, attorneys who are seen as defenders of the rule of law and constitutional governance can become targets of state action aimed at consolidating executive authority and weakening institutional checks. The analysis emphasizes the contested position of lawyers in such contexts: they may act as guardians of legal freedoms, yet their visibility and influence can make them vulnerable to political persecution when institutional balance erodes.