Venezuela prosecutor seeks legal action against top justices

Venezuela’s chief prosecutor escalated her challenge to the government of President Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday, asking the Supreme Court to strip away the legal immunity from prosecution of eight judges she accuses of breaking the troubled nation’s constitutional order.

Luisa Ortega Diaz said allowing the judges in the court’s constitutional chamber to remain in office “puts the nation at risk” because of a string of rulings that have undermined attempts to challenge Maduro’s government.

“It would be the death of law if we allow these magistrates to continue in that chamber,” she said.

The high court’s constitutional 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 National Assembly, a decision it later reversed amid a torrent of international criticism.

More recently, the chamber 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 new elections as the nation battles triple-digit inflation, crippling food and medical shortages and rising crime.

Ortega Diaz, who was long a government loyalist, has repeatedly challenged Maduro’s request to convoke a constitutional assembly. Maduro says the constitution rewrite is the best way to promote dialogue to resolve the crisis, but the opposition has refused to participate, claiming Maduro is using it to tighten his grip on power and avoid elections he would likely lose.

The president doesn’t have the authority to fire the chief prosecutor, who can be removed only by the National Assembly.

On Monday, the Supreme Court dismissed Ortega Diaz’s request to stop the constitutional assembly, saying she presented insufficient legal grounds.

She responded by introducing a new complaint contesting the appointment of 13 Supreme Court magistrates and 21 substitute judges who were ushered into office in 2015 just before the opposition took control of the National Assembly.