Page:Constitution of the Bolivarian republic of Venezuela.djvu/94

96 limitations. Likewise, subject to court order, assets deriving from the activities relating to these offenses shall be confiscated.

Proceedings pertaining to the aforementioned offenses shall be public, oral and expeditious, with respect for due process, the competent judicial authorities being authorized to order the necessary preventive precautionary measures against assets belonging to the defendant or persons interposed by the latter, in order to provide a guarantee for their possible civil liability.

Article 272: The State guarantees a penitentiary system such as to ensure the rehabilitation of inmates and respect for their human rights. To this end, penitentiary establishments shall have areas for work, study, sports and recreation, shall operate under the direction of professional penologists with academic credentials, and will be ruled by decentralized administration by state or municipal governments; they may be subject to privatization arrangements. In such establishments, an open regimen shall be preferred, as well as the model of custodial agricultural colonies. In all cases punishment formulas without restriction of freedom shall be applied with preference to measures that restrict freedom. The State shall create the essential institutions to provide postpenitentiary assistance for the reinsertion of the inmate into society and shall encourage the creation of an autonomous penitentiary institution with personnel of an exclusively technical nature.

Article 273: Citizen Power is exercised by the Republican Ethics Council, consisting of the People Defender, the General Prosecutor and the General Comptroller of the Republic.

The organs of Citizen Power are the People Defender's Office, the Office of Public Prosecutions and the Office of the General Comptroller of the Republic, one of whose heads shall be designated