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News > Peru

Peru: Justice Minister To Weight Upon Vice President's Case

  • Vice President Mercedes Araoz was sworn in as interim president by Congress but a day later resigned.

    Vice President Mercedes Araoz was sworn in as interim president by Congress but a day later resigned. | Photo: EFE

Published 7 October 2019
Opinion

Lawmakers filed a complaint over "usurpation of official functions" against Aráoz, as well as Olaechea, for accepting her oath, as well as lawmaker Milagros Salazar for appointing her.

Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra announced Monday that judicial authorities will determine whether the oath of Vice-President Mercedes Araoz to become the country's Interim President was legal since she took the oath after he dissolved the Congress.

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"She took an oath to a mandate that she could not take because Congress had already been constitutionally dissolved," Vizcarra told reporters, adding that "when she realized that, she corrected her mistake on the following day and resigned because it was illegal."

Vizcarra asked Prime Minister Vicente Zeballos to make the relevant "judicial interpretation" required for the case through the justice ministry.

The premier stated that "from a political and a constitutional perspective," Araoz was still Peru's vice president because she resigned before a Congress that was already dissolved then.

On Sept. 30, as the vice president, she took an oath to become Peru's Interim President, but resigned from both responsibilities on the following day, in a letter sent to Congress President Pedro Olaechea.

Last Monday, Peru’s President Martin Vizcarra signed an executive order dissolving the opposition-run Congress as he considered the legislature's failure to go through with his vote of confidence as a signal to dissolve the entity, which the president is allowed to do under the constitution.

However, after Vizcarra's decision was announced, Congress approved the vote of confidence, leaving the country at a critical political standstill, as they have started a process to remove Vizcarra due to "permanent moral incapacity."

Vizcarra kept on with his first-announced measure in order to keep lawmakers from appointing up to six out of seven justices in the Constitutional Court (TC).

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