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WORLD NEWS Wednesday 14 June 2017
Venezuela prosecutor seeks legal action against top justices

new elections as the nation tighten his grip on power ing the appointment of 13
battles triple-digit inflation, and avoid elections he Supreme Court magistrates
crippling food and medical would likely lose. and 21 substitute judges
shortages and rising crime. The president doesn’t have who were ushered into of-
Ortega Diaz, who was long the authority to fire the fice in 2015 just before the
a government loyalist, has chief prosecutor, who can opposition took control of
repeatedly challenged be removed only by the the National Assembly.
Maduro’s request to con- National Assembly. Thus far, the government-
voke a constitutional as- On Monday, the Supreme stacked Supreme Court
sembly. Maduro says the Court dismissed Ortega has shown no sign of con-
constitution rewrite is the Diaz’s request to stop the ceding to Ortega Diaz’s
best way to promote dia- constitutional assembly, demands.
logue to resolve the crisis, saying she presented insuf- The Venezuelan constitu-
but the opposition has re- ficient legal grounds. She tion grants legal immu-
fused to participate, claim- responded by introducing nity to members of the Su-
In this April 25, 2017 photo, Venezuela’s General Prosecutor ing Maduro is using it to a new complaint contest- preme Court. q

Luisa Ortega Diaz speaks dur-
ing a news conference at her
office in Caracas, Venezuela.
On Tuesday, June 13, Ortega
has ordered charges against
8 judges of the Supreme Court
for conspiring to against the
republic.
(APPhoto/Ariana Cubillos)

By FABIOLA SANCHEZ
Associated Press
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP)
— Venezuela’s chief pros-
ecutor escalated her chal-
lenge to the government
of President Nicolas Madu-
ro Tuesday, asking the Su-
preme Court to strip away
the legal immunity from
prosecution of eight judg-
es she accuses of breaking
the troubled nation’s con-
stitutional order.
Luisa Ortega Diaz said al-
lowing the judges in the
court’s constitutional
chamber to remain in of-
fice “puts the nation at risk”
because of a string of rul-
ings that have undermined
attempts to challenge
Maduro’s government.
“It would be the death of
law if we allow these mag-
istrates to continue in that
chamber,” she said.
The high court’s constitu-
tional judges made a series
of decisions that provoked
the current wave of unrest
in which at least 68 people
have been killed. In late
March, the judges issued
a sentence dissolving the
opposition-controlled Na-
tional Assembly, a decision
it later reversed amid a tor-
rent of international criti-
cism.
More recently, the cham-
ber threw out challenges
to Maduro’s controversial
bid to rewrite the nation’s
constitution.
Hundreds of thousands of
demonstrators have taken
to the streets demanding