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Venezuela’s Supreme Court Takes Power From Legislature Venezuela Moves a Step Closer to One-Man Rule
(about 2 hours later)
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela slipped further toward one-man rule under the leftist President Nicolás Maduro as the Supreme Court, controlled by the president, seized power from the National Assembly in a ruling late Wednesday night. IQUITOS, Peru — Venezuela took its strongest step yet toward one-man rule under the leftist President Nicolás Maduro, as his loyalists on the Supreme Court seized power from the National Assembly in a ruling late Wednesday night.
The move quashed what most consider to be the only remaining counterbalance to Mr. Maduro’s growing power in the country. The National Assembly is led by Mr. Maduro’s opponents. The ruling effectively dissolved the elected legislature, which is led by Mr. Maduro’s opponents, and allows the court to write laws itself, experts said.
The court’s ruling said lawmakers were “in a situation of contempt,” and said during that period, the justices themselves would be stepping in to “ensure that parliamentary powers were exercised directly by this Chamber, or by the body that the Chamber chooses.” The move capstones a year in which the last vestiges of Venezuela’s democracy have been torn down, say critics and regional leaders, leaving what many now describe as not just an authoritarian regime, but an outright dictatorship.
The ruling would appear to allow the court, which is controlled by leftists loyal to Mr. Maduro, to write laws itself, said experts who had reviewed it. “What we have warned of has finally come to pass,” said Luis Almagro, the head of the Organization of American States, a regional diplomacy group that includes Venezuela and is investigating the country for violating the group’s Democratic Charter. He called the move a “self-inflicted coup.”
Members of the National Assembly denounced the decision as a coup. Recent months have seen a swift consolidation of power by Mr. Maduro as scores of political prisoners have been detained without trial, protesters violently repressed and local elections for mayors and governors indefinitely postponed. In taking power from the National Assembly, the ruling removed what most consider to be the only remaining counterbalance to the president’s growing power in the country.
“They have kidnapped the Constitution, they have kidnapped our rights, they have kidnapped our liberty,” said Julio Borges, the opposition lawmaker who leads the body. The ruling said that lawmakers were “in a situation of contempt” and that while that lasted, the justices themselves would step in to “ensure that parliamentary powers were exercised directly by this Chamber, or by the body that the Chamber chooses.”
Venezuela’s National Assembly has been controlled by opponents of the country’s ruling leftists since January 2016. Initially, Mr. Maduro said he would work with the body and even appeared before the Parliament to give his annual address on the state of the government that month. Members of the National Assembly denounced the ruling on Thursday.
However, the government soon began to use the court to marginalize the assembly. Over the year, the court invalidated law after law as unconstitutional. One ruling stripped it of its powers to review the budget. “They have kidnapped the Constitution, they have kidnapped our rights, they have kidnapped our liberty,” said Julio Borges, the opposition lawmaker who heads the body, holding a crumpled copy of the ruling before reporters on Thursday.
The conflict between Mr. Maduro and his opponents has deepened because of Venezuela’s economy, which is in free fall because of low oil prices and years of economic mismanagement. The situation has led to shortages of basic foods and medicines and to international pressure for Mr. Maduro to hold elections. Oneida Guaipe, an opposition lawmaker from the country’s central coast, said the body would continue to do its work, even if its laws would now be ignored when it produced legislation.
“It’s demonstrating before the world the authoritarianism here,” she said. “The people chose us through a popular vote.”
The ruling was also a challenge to Venezuela’s neighbors, which met in Washington this week to put pressure on the country to hold elections, and to discuss a possible expulsion of Venezuela from the O.A.S. on the grounds that the country is not democratic.
Last week, the United States, Canada and a dozen of Latin America’s largest nations called for Mr. Maduro to recognize the National Assembly’s powers, a rare joint statement that reflected deep impatience with the government.
David Smilde, an analyst from the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights advocacy group, said it might now be up to Venezuela’s neighbors to encourage the country to hold elections again, given resistance from within the government. “The Maduro government seems to have no intention of respecting the basic elements of electoral democracy,” he said.
The criticisms of Venezuela include a long litany of other measures taken by the government that critics say are taking a toll on democracy in the country.
Venezuela’s rising number of political prisoners has become a prime example.
In January, Mr. Maduro appointed a stalwart hard-liner, Tareck El Aissami, as his vice president, putting him in charge of a new “anti-coup commando” to round up political dissidents accused of treason. The group has taken aim at members of the opposition, arresting many, including a city councilman from central Venezuela and a deputy lawmaker in the National Assembly.
Mr. Maduro has also taken aim at the press, arresting local journalists and intimidating international outlets.
In February, after CNN en Español, the network’s Spanish language channel, broadcast an investigation that linked Mr. El Aissami to a passport fraud scheme in the Middle East, Mr. Maduro ordered the channel off the air. The government has blocked the Caracas bureau chief of The New York Times from entering the country since October.
But many observers say that more than a year of gradual assault against the National Assembly has led to the latest move, the most telling sign of democratic erosion in Venezuela.
“It has come in fragments,” said Carlos Ayala Corao, a Venezuelan lawyer and legal analyst of the court’s actions against the legislature. “They have been slicing it in pieces.”
Venezuela’s National Assembly has been controlled by opponents of the country’s ruling leftists since January 2016. Initially, Mr. Maduro said he would work with the body and even appeared before the parliament to give his annual address on the state of the government that month.