Law on NGOs affects beneficiaries of humanitarian aid

The Venezuelan organization Acceso a la Justicia affirmed this Wednesday that the Law on Supervision, Regularization, Performance and Financing of NGOs and Social Organizations approved by the Parliament, with a Chavista majority, harms the beneficiaries of humanitarian aid.

“The greatest damage falls on the beneficiaries of humanitarian assistance and the support provided by civil society organizations,” the NGO said in a press release published on its website.

Access to Justice added that the population in the most vulnerable situation runs the “risk of losing the support offered by organizations.”

The NGO indicated that after an analysis of the text it concluded that the law is a “primarily punitive” norm, which includes serious inaccuracies that allow for arbitrary application.

“All of this creates a situation of legal insecurity that threatens the very existence of civil society organizations,” he said.

The law, Access to Justice continued, adds “many and very heavy burdens” to non-profit social organizations, “but subtracts state obligations in order to guarantee rights.”

“The Venezuelan Government aspires to destroy the social fabric, which is a collective heritage and which has allowed us to solve problems that the State cannot solve,” he added.

On August 15, Parliament approved the Law on Supervision, Regularization, Performance and Financing of NGOs and Social Organizations, which provides for the judicial dissolution of these groups that violate the provisions established in the regulations.

NGOs, according to the new law, are prohibited from receiving financial contributions destined for political organizations or making financial contributions to these formations, as well as promoting “fascism, intolerance or hatred.”

Likewise, it establishes as grounds for the dissolution of these associations the failure to comply with these prohibitions, declared by judicial decision, as well as the failure to pay any fine imposed “in accordance with this law, once the available judicial remedies have been exhausted.”

NGOs must, by law, notify “the financing or donations” they receive, in order to “ensure the legality of the funds”, in addition to declaring the “donations received with full identification of the donors, indicating whether they are national or foreign, accidental or permanent.

The Executive is responsible for “monitoring and controlling compliance” with the “duties and prohibitions” established in the new legislation, for which, among other measures, it will implement and evaluate mechanisms that serve these purposes..