Ecuador court rejects lawmakers’ challenges to president’s disbanding of National Assembly

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuador’s Constitutional Court has rejected multiple challenges that sought to invalidate President Guillermo Lasso decree dissolving the opposition-led National Assembly as it tried to oust him in an impeachment trial. With Thursday’s ruling, there are no impediments for the country’s electoral body to call elections for president and the legislature, which are tentatively set for August. In challenging Lasso’s action, his adversaries tried to persuade the Constitutional Court to rule that the move was illegal on the grounds Ecuador is not facing any urgent crisis. But the court says it does not have jurisdiction to “rule on the verification and motivation of the cause of serious political crisis and internal upheaval invoked” by Lasso to dissolve the assembly.