Venezuelan opposition lawmakers on Wednesday launched efforts to fire judges whom they accuse of mounting a judicial “coup” to keep Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in power.
The deputies’ effort looked unlikely to prosper since the decision to remove the judges depends on other state institutions loyal to the government.
The opposition accused the judges of last week attempting a “coup d’etat.”
Photo: AFP
The court had issued rulings transferring the assembly’s legislative powers to the court and revoking lawmakers’ immunity from prosecution.
The judges later reversed the rulings after an international outcry.
“They have carried out an ongoing internal coup,” senior opposition deputy Henry Ramos Allup told the assembly. “We have to escape from it by civil protests, exercising our constitutional functions and not giving in to a failed, outlaw government.”
Despite revoking last week’s judgements, the judges kept in force a series of other rulings that restrict the assembly’s powers.
The Venezuelan Supreme Court has consistently overruled the Venezuelan National Assembly legislature since the opposition majority took its seats in January last year.
Maduro is resisting opposition efforts to hold a vote on removing him from power.
The opposition blames him for Venezuela’s economic crisis, while he blames a capitalist conspiracy.
The collapse in energy prices has sapped the country’s revenues, prompting shortages of food, medicine and basic goods along with a surge in violent crime.
Elsewhere, protesters and riot police clashed with students demonstrating against the court rulings, reporters said.
Clashes broke out on Wednesday in the western city of San Cristobal, scene of deadly riots and looting last year.
Last week’s rulings drew concern from the US and Europe, as well as from Latin American powers.
On Wednesday, the European Parliament in Strasbourg debated the situation in Venezuela.
Deputies from the European People’s Party called for a tougher line on Maduro.
They demanded that Maduro release political prisoners and ensure humanitarian aid to those suffering in the crisis.
In an address to the parliament, EU Commissioner for Justice Vera Jourova reiterated the bloc’s call for timely elections in Venezuela and respect for the assembly’s role.
The Organization of American States (OAS) on Tuesday issued a resolution denouncing the court’s moves as gravely unconstitutional.
OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro has been pressing for the group’s members to suspend Venezuela.
Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs Delcy Rodriguez on Wednesday hit back at a meeting of the OAS council, rejecting the declaration as a “fraud.”
“Get your hands off Venezuela once and for all,” Rodriguez told Almagro.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion