Reinaldo Muñoz, Venezuela's attorney general, has filed an injunction against the opposition-controlled National Assembly over "unconstitutional actions." Photo courtesy Attorney General of the Republic of Venezuela

CARACAS, Venezuela, Nov. 10 (UPI) -- Venezuela's attorney general announced that he filed an injunction against the opposition-controlled National Assembly over alleged constitutional violations.

Attorney General Reinaldo Muñoz said on Thursday he filed the injunction in the Supreme Court to protect the Venezuelan people.


"What there is is simply a situation of contempt, ignorance of rules, selective choice, selectively choose what they can observe and what they can not observe, and thus [they] can not operate a public power," Muñoz said in statements provided by the attorney general's office. "The people can not doubt that there is planning in all this. We recognize that they were elected, but not chosen to remove the president, not to bring about a political crisis, not to break the constitutional thread, not to depose the rest of the powers."

Muñoz accused the unicameral legislature of constitutional violations, of inviting international organizations and spokesmen to "interfere in the Venezuelan situation" and of repeatedly calling for protests that have led to violence.

"The Attorney General's Office has the patriotic duty to ask the highest organ of Venezuelan justice to take whatever provisions are necessary to prevent the continuation of the proceedings of the National Assembly outside the Constitution," he said on Venezuelan state TV.

The National Assembly was declared defunct by Venezuela's Supreme Court, known formally as the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, or TSJ, earlier this year -- an act the opposition said shows that the country's institutions favor Maduro's regime.

Late October, the National Assembly said Maduro would stand trial -- a symbolic trial that was later delayed -- after the opposition's efforts to carry out a recall referendum were suspended by the National Electoral Council, which is also accused of favoring Maduro.

The opposition lawmakers said Maduro staged a coup d'etat by ordering unconstitutional actions, referring to the suspension of the referendum. Muñoz last week said the National Assembly's claim that Maduro staged an unconstitutional coup d'etat and its intent to make Maduro stand trial are grounds for legal repercussions.

Opposition members have likened the political crisis as a fight between the branches of government and institutions: the opposition-controlled parliament battling Maduro's ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the National Electoral Council and Supreme Court.

On Thursday, Muñoz dismissed the opposition's claim that Venezuela's institutions are working against the National Assembly.

"That is an absurd approach, especially if we see our Constitution. In it there is no superposition of one power over another," Muñoz said. "There is no confrontation, it is not that the other powers are confronted with the National Assembly, but the control function of the National Assembly has been exacerbated, which has tried to overcome what the Constitution prescribed, and for example -- supposed political trial, the famous impeachment against the president, to make people see, fictitiously, that they have the power to remove the president. There is no such power."