.jpg)
Caracas: Venezuela's opposition-controlled legislature defiantly vowed to hold a new session Tuesday despite a Supreme Court ruling declaring it null and void, unleashing a messy institutional crisis for the reeling oil giant.
The showdown between the legislative and judicial branches escalated Monday when the court invalidated all actions taken by the current National Assembly, which includes three opposition lawmakers judges had barred from taking office over an election dispute.
The new decision declared the three lawmakers and the National Assembly's leaders in contempt of court and voided the legislature's decisions for as long as the trio hold their seats.
The opposition coalition, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), accuses the court of bias in favor of President Nicolas Maduro.
It said it could not respect the ruling and would continue legislating with the two-thirds majority it insists it rightfully won in elections last month.
Leaders said the legislature would hold a new session Tuesday.
National Assembly speaker Henry Ramos Allup accused the court of trying to "override the people's will."
Deputy speaker Simon Calzadilla vowed all the opposition's 112 lawmakers -- including the three at the center of the dispute -- would continue legislating.
"This sentence from the Supreme Court of Justice is impossible to respect. We lawmakers are protected by the constitution," he said.
The number two figure in Maduro's camp, former speaker Diosdado Cabello, fired back that the country was headed toward a legislative "power vacuum."
"If the Assembly is in contempt, no one is going to recognize it. We the people are not required to. The other branches of government are not required to," he said.
The court has emerged as a powerful player as Venezuela embarks on a new era of divided government in the wake of the opposition's landslide win in legislative elections on December 6, which delivered a crushing blow to Maduro and the "revolution" launched by his late mentor Hugo Chavez in 1999.
A week before the 167-member legislature's inauguration, the court barred the three opposition lawmakers from taking their seats, effectively scrapping MUD's powerful two-thirds majority.
Ramos Allup, the new speaker, defiantly swore them in anyway, setting up a messy political and legal battle.
- Political prisoners bill -
The opposition's disputed "super-majority" gives it the power to remove Supreme Court judges from the bench, as well as put legislation to a referendum and call an assembly to draft a new constitution.
The opposition has vowed to use those powers to force Maduro from office within six months.
The embattled president, whose term runs until 2019, has meanwhile vowed to fight the "bourgeois Assembly" tooth and nail.
Just hours before the court ruling, MUD lawmakers had launched a legislative committee to probe alleged irregularities in the appointment of 13 judges to the 32-member Supreme Court.
Maduro's United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) used an extraordinary session in the final hours of its legislative majority to push through the judges' appointment, a move the opposition condemned as undemocratic.
The court ruling came as MUD lawmakers introduced a bill Monday on one of their top legislative initiatives, an amnesty for 75 jailed opposition figures they say are political prisoners.
The bill was tabled by Lilian Tintori, the wife of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who was sentenced to 14 years in September on charges of inciting violence at anti-government protests -- a ruling that drew international condemnation.
Venezuelans exasperated with a deep recession, empty supermarket shelves and what analysts say is the world's highest inflation rate voted last month to give the opposition control of the National Assembly for the first time since Chavez came to power 17 years ago.
AFP
