CARACAS: Venezuela’s Supreme Court has upheld the ouster of a prominent opposition deputy from the National Assembly, the latest step in a crackdown on leaders of weeks-long anti-government protests here.
The legislature’s speaker had ordered Maria Corina Machado expelled and her parliamentary immunity stripped after she tried to speak before the Organization of American States as a guest of the Panamanian delegation.
Machado’s OAS appearance was “incompatible” with her function as an elected lawmaker, the court’s constitutional panel said late Monday.
“This diplomatic function not only is to the detriment of the legislative function to which she was previously elected, but in frank contradiction with her duties as a Venezuelan and as a deputy of the National Assembly,” the court said.
Disodado Cabello, the assembly president and head of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, contended that Machado had forfeited her seat when she was accredited to the Panamanian delegation to the Organization of American States.
Echoing Cabello, the court cited an article in the constitution that forbids members of the legislature to accept positions, honors or payments from foreign governments without the assembly’s approval.
In stripping her of parliamentary immunity, Cabello said she could be arrested at any time “for all the things that have been happening.” Machado attended a closed-door meeting of the OAS Permanent Council March 21 but Venezuela maneuvered to block an open session on the situation in the country.
The lefist government of President Nicolas Maduro has been struggling to squelch nearly two months of protests that have left at least 39 dead since they began in the western city of San Cristobal February 4.
On Sunday, it sent national guard troops and police into San Cristobal to clear barricades from key avenues.
AFP
