Libya’s Supreme Court on Thursday declared the internationally recognised parliament as unconstitutional, in a ruling likely to fuel further chaos in the north African oil producing nation.
The decision came a day after gunmen stormed Libya’s biggest oilfield, shutting down production at the facility in the country’s remote south in a new blow to the already beleaguered energy sector.
Libya is in chaos as two rival governments and parliaments are struggling for control of the country’s vast energy reserves three years after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi. Dozens of armed groups have also joined the fray.
Western powers and Libya’s neighbours fear the OPEC member nation is heading for a full-blown civil war, with former rebels who helped oust Gaddafi now using their guns to carve out their own fiefdom.
Libya is split into a western part controlled by fighters calling themselves Operation Dawn, who seized the capital in August, leaving the internationally recognised parliament and government in charge of a rump state in the east.
In a televised ruling likely to deepen these divisions and hamper United Nations mediation efforts, the Supreme Court invalidated the election of the House of Representatives, which has fled to the eastern city of Tobruk. The court said a committee that prepared the election law had violated the country’s provisional constitution.
The June election produced an assembly with a strong showing of liberals and federalists, annoying Islamists with links to Operation Dawn, which seized Tripoli two months later.
The Supreme Court is based in Tripoli, where Dawn has reinstated the previous parliament, the General National Congress (GNC), where Islamists had been stronger.
The fighters, who come mainly from the western city of Misrata, have taken control of state bodies, calling into question the court’s ability to rule independently.
A GNC official predictably welcomed the decision, while hundreds of people in Tripoli were seen celebrating. A spokesman for the House of Representatives in Tobruk declined to comment while lawmakers debated how to respond.
There was also no immediate response from Western and Arab powers which have recognized only the Tobruk-based assembly and publicly boycotted the rival Prime Minister Omar al-Hassi, set up by the Tripoli rulers.
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