Venezuela's Supreme Court Orders Vice President Rodríguez to Serve as Acting President
The Constitutional Chamber of Venezuela's Supreme Court of Justice ordered late on January 3 that Vice President Delcy Eloína Rodríguez Gómez immediately assume the role of acting president and exercise all the powers of the presidency during President Nicolás Maduro's absence. The ruling, reported by multiple news agencies on January 4, was read on Venezuelan national radio and television by Constitutional Chamber magistrate Tania D'Amelio.
Maduro and his wife were captured by U.S. forces in Caracas on January 3 and taken out of Venezuela. The court found that Maduro was in a state of enforced absence and in material and temporary impossibility to exercise his functions, and it applied the constitutional provisions on presidential absence. The ruling characterized the absence as temporary and did not declare Maduro permanently unable to serve.
The order stated that Rodríguez, as acting president, should assume and exercise all the powers, duties and faculties inherent to the position of President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in order to guarantee administrative continuity and the comprehensive defense of the nation. The court also ordered immediate notification of the vice president, the high military command and the National Assembly, saying the decision responded to what it described as foreign aggression.
Rodríguez has served as Venezuela's vice president since 2018, is a longtime Maduro ally, and also serves as oil minister. Her appointment gave Venezuela a successor in executive authority after Maduro was taken out of the country, with further arrangements dependent on the court's later findings on Maduro's status.
Source: Supreme Court of Justice of Venezuela
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于委内瑞拉加拉加斯的委内瑞拉最高司法法院大楼（资料照片）。Guillermo Ramos Flamerich 摄，CC BY-SA 3.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Supreme Court of Justice of Venezuela building in Caracas, Venezuela (file photo). Photo by Guillermo Ramos Flamerich, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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