WIKI
The Supreme Justice Tribunal (Spanish: Tribunal Supremo de Justicia or TSJ) is the highest court of law in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and is the head of the judicial branch. As the independence of the Venezuelan judiciary under the regime of Nicolás Maduro is questioned, there have recently been many disputes as to whether this court is legitimate.
As of 2017, for a part of Venezuelan society, the legitimacy of the Supreme Tribunal is in question, especially the legitimacy of its origin, due to the appointment on 23 December 2015 of 13 main justices and 21 supplementary justices by a lame duck National Assembly with a ruling party majority, as well as its actions since. Article 264 of the Venezuelan Constitution and Title V of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice Organic Law contemplate an extense procedure of more than thirty days for the appointment of the justices, both main and alternate, in which it is required to form a Judicial Nominations Committee integrated by members of the National Assembly and civil society, which will do a preselection of candidates that will be submitted to the Republican Moral Council: the Ombudsman, the Public Ministry and the Comptroller General, which will do a second preselection that in turn will be submitted to the National Assembly, which will have a lapse of three plenary sessions to appoint the justices with the vote of two thirds of the deputies or a fourth plenary session with the vote of a simple majority in case of not getting two thirds of the vote. The appointment of the justices was not done in accordance with the legal procedure, but with a hurried process carried out on 23 December 2015 by the lame duck National Assembly with a ruling party majority, when the legislature ended on 15 December, after being defeated on the 2015 parliamentary election, where the opposition, represented by the Democratic Unity Roundtable opposition coalition, gained 112 of the 167 seats.
On 27 March 2017, in sentence 155, the Tribunal granted faculties of the National Assembly to Nicolás Maduro to legislate and “take the civilian, military, economic, criminal, administrative, political, juridic and social measures considered necessary to prevent a state of conmotion...”. On 29 March, the Tribunal published a second sentence, 156, attributed to itself the constitutional functions of the Assembly and decided on delegating them on the organisms that is considered pertinent, on the pretext of “legislative omission” of the Assembly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Tribunal_of_Justice_(Venezuela)
NOTE: I’m just quoting. I have no prior knowledge of the court.
Criticisms
Venezuela’s judicial system has been deemed the most corrupt in the world by Transparency International in 2014. Human Rights Watch claimed that in 2004, President Hugo Chávez and his allies took over the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, filling it with his supporters and adding measures so the government could dismiss justices from the court. In 2010, legislators from Chávez’s political party appointed nine permanent judges and 32 stand-ins, which included several allies. They claimed that some judges may face reprisals if they rule against government interests.
It has also been alleged that the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, with the majority supporting Chávez, elected officials to the supposedly non-partisan National Electoral Council of Venezuela, despite the 1999 Constitution empowering the National Assembly of Venezuela to perform that action. This resulted in Chavistas making up a majority of the electoral council’s board.
After Chávez’ death and with Nicolás Maduro as president, following the 2015 National Assembly election, the lame duck National Assembly, the majority of whom were Bolivarian supporters, filled the Supreme Tribunal of Justice with Maduro allies. The tribunal then quickly stripped three new opposition lawmakers of their National Assembly seats in early 2016, citing irregularities in their elections, thereby preventing an opposition supermajority which would have been able to challenge Maduro. The tribunal then approved several actions by Maduro and granted him more powers.