# The TSJ assumes National Assembly powers in rulings 155 and 156 Date: 2017 ## The fact On 29 March 2017 Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice issued rulings that assumed the legislative powers of the opposition-led [National Assembly](/organizations/national-assembly), citing contempt. After domestic and international protest, including from the prosecutor, the Court walked back the most extreme language. He did not sit as the Sala Constitucional. ## Context The 2015 Assembly majority sat as parent. Neighbouring ANC July 2017 is a child. FANB and PSUV share the street file. 2017 protest wave is a child. ANC 30 July is a child parallel legislature. The President of Venezuela heads the national executive, commands FANB as commander-in-chief, appoints the cabinet, and can request enabling laws. He does not write an OFAC designation, an ICC Pre-Trial Chamber decision, or a Colombian migration statute. A CNE announcement is not an opposition acta and is not a Carter Center finding. Those three statuses stay on separate rows. An ICC investigation is not a conviction. An IMF figure is labelled as an estimate where BCV stopped publishing. Sanctions after 2017 and 2019 are an external causal factor; they do not erase the pre-2017 PDVSA-and-policy collapse. ## Evidence and sources TSJ carries the official instrument or communique. Reuters records the same dated act independently. ## Significance The path is justice and [democratic resilience](/drivers/democratic-resilience): a completed court assumption of a sitting assembly’s powers. ## What is established and what is not Established: 29 March 2017 TSJ rulings and subsequent partial walk-back, independently reported. Not established: that every later statute was thereby uniquely authored that Wednesday, or a unique later homicide coefficient. What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, a later repeal, a court that vacated the instrument, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions. The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit. He publicly backed the Court. The 2015 Assembly and the prosecutor share the challenge file.. A later repeal, court stay, or successor order would be a different Fact with a different date. That pair identifies The TSJ assumes National Assembly powers in rulings 155 and 156, not a later speech about The TSJ assumes National Assembly powers in rulings 155 and 156. Co-authors and later implementers named in Context remain on the file. The TSJ assumes National Assembly powers in rulings 155 and 156 on 2017-03-29 is not a licence to treat every later TSJ communique as this same act. If a later repeal, stay, or successor instrument exists, it needs its own date and its own row. This dossier refuses to average The TSJ assumes National Assembly powers in rulings 155 and 156 into a personality. The contribution described on this Person row is limited to TSJ wrote the rulings. He publicly backed the Court. The 2015 Assembly and the prosecutor share the challenge file. That limit is the alternative to treating office-holding as authorship of every later series. ## People - Nicolás Maduro: https://factrail.ai/people/nicolas-maduro ## Drivers - Judicial independence erosion (court capture): https://factrail.ai/drivers/justice-judicial-independence-erosion - Democratic Resilience: https://factrail.ai/drivers/democratic-resilience ## Sources - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-idUSKBN1700XT - https://www.tsj.gob.ve/ ## Methodology https://factrail.ai/methodology Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ve-tsj-an-2017