By JUAN FORERO
 
OGOTÁ, Colombia, June 17 - The government of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela is poised to pack the Supreme Court with allies who could decide in favor of the president if an August recall referendum on his rule is as close and contested as expected, an American-based human rights group said Thursday.

A new law signed by Mr. Chávez in May expanded the Supreme Court to 32 from 20 members. It also permits pro-government representatives in the National Assembly to use their slim majority to appoint and remove justices, instead of obtaining a two-thirds majority as was common practice before, according to a Human Rights Watch report released in Caracas on Thursday.

The 12 new justices will probably be appointed in July. But the National Assembly applied the law already, on Tuesday, by annulling the tenure of the court's vice president, Franklin Arrieche, who had voted to acquit military officers involved in a 2002 coup against Mr. Chávez.

The government and its allies, including three members of the five-member National Electoral Council, have also called for restricting or even barring the Organization of American States and the Atlanta-based Carter Center from monitoring the vote, set to take place Aug. 15.

The developments come as the government, fending off the latest challenge from a determined opposition, embarks on a campaign of intense social spending fueled by rising oil revenues.

But political analysts say that if Mr. Chávez cannot win the recall outright, his government could count on the Supreme Court to ensure victory if the referendum results are close or disputed.

Officials in the attorney general's office said they could not comment on the new law, called the Organic Law of the Supreme Court, until they read Human Right Watch's 24-page report. Representatives at Miraflores, the presidential palace, did not return calls seeking comment.

But a supporter of the law in the National Assembly, Eustoquio Contreras, and the Venezuelan ambassador in Washington, Bernardo Álvarez, said the new law was part of the government's efforts to make a system once riddled with corruption more efficient. The new measure allowing the National Assembly to make appointments by a simple majority, they said, is aimed at easing the logjam that has made appointing judges difficult.

"The problem we've had in Congress is there has been a process of jamming the game," Mr. Álvarez said of the country's tangled and politically polarized legislative process. "That is why we had to change the process in the Congress."

But José Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director for Human Rights Watch, characterized the new law as a political takeover of the judiciary similar to the remaking of the legal system of Peru by Alberto K. Fujimori and the packing of the Supreme Court in Argentina by Carlos Menem when the two were in office. Both men are now in exile, avoiding corruption charges in their countries.

"If nobody reacts now, tomorrow will be too late," Mr. Vivanco said in an interview earlier this week. "The 32 justices of the Supreme Court will start ruling, and it will be impossible to question those rulings."

In Venezuela, judicial autonomy has already been severely limited by the firing of judges who have ruled against the government by the six-member judicial commission of the Supreme Court, said Mr. Vivanco. Human Rights Watch also says that the vast majority of judges in Venezuela are not allowed to obtain tenure, thereby intimidating them from making difficult decisions.

"The executive has penetrated the judicial system," Miguel Luna, a judge recently fired after issuing a decision the government did not like, said in a phone interview. "Autonomy has been lost in our justice system."

The Human Rights Watch report was compiled after interviews in May with current and former judges, as well as judicial officials and lawyers. The president of the Supreme Court, Ivan Rincon; the attorney general, Isaías Rodríguez; and pro-government legislators told Human Rights Watch that those who had the power to appoint would themselves ensure judicial independence.

Human Rights Watch rejected this argument and called on the Organization of American States to urge the Venezuelan government and the Supreme Court to shelve the new law. "A rule of law that relies on self-restraint of those with power is not, in fact, the rule of law," the report said.

The report comes as opposition leaders and foreign diplomats have raised concerns about the efforts of government officials and the electoral council to limit the role of foreign observers from the O.A.S. and the Carter Center in the recall. Some officials have even called for the two organizations to be banned.

Both groups were invited by the government and the electoral council to monitor the signature gathering that set off the referendum in December, but their criticism of the electoral council's efforts to disqualify and delay a decision infuriated Mr. Chávez's supporters.

"We do not believe the presence of these representatives from the Carter Center and O.A.S. are necessary in this new Venezuelan process," William Lara, a member of the National Assembly, said recently. "We saw biases and how both organizations acted in favor of the opposition."

The O.A.S. is present at all major elections in Latin America. The organization uses election observers and the collection of voting samples in a process called quick count to detect fraud or other problems. Under agreements signed with host governments, it is empowered to speak out if it detects deception.

Diplomats in the organization said the group would be unable to accept an invitation under tight restrictions. The last time the Organization of American States pulled out of an election was in 2000 in Peru, when Mr. Fujimori stole the election, which led to the collapse of his government.

"We've done it like this in many countries, many, and we've never had a problem," said Fernando Jaramillo, the organization's chief of staff. "If they don't give access to information, how do we do work, how do we observe? That's normal. We've done nothing in Venezuela that's different from in any other country."