The Ecuadorian parliament late Sunday voted to dismiss members of the country's Supreme Court at a special session held in Quito, following mass street protests against recent judicial reforms.

Government troops including some 500 soldiers and policemen maintained a tight security cordon around parliament and kept a watchful eye on one group of demonstrators carrying Ecuadorian flags near the Congress building, while protests and rallies were reported in at least four regional provinces.

Ramiro Rivera, a lawmaker with the Popular Democratic Party (DP), voiced hope earlier Sunday that the extraordinary session would overturn the Gutierrez administration's bid to restructure the high court.

On Friday, Gutierrez declared a state of emergency and dissolved the Supreme Court in a bid to settle a political crisis simmering for months. He said he would not allow lawmakers to reform the Supreme Court through a simple congressional resolution, but opponents were highly critical, saying he has acted like a dictator.

The emergency declaration empowers the government to take extraordinary measures to quell unrest in Quito, where thousands of people took to the streets late in the day, pressing Gutierrez to quit.

The crisis turned worse early in April, when the new president of the Supreme Court cleared former president Abdala Bucaram of corruption charges and allowed him to return from eight years in exile in Panama.

The opposition denounced Gutierrez for dissolving the Supreme Court. They rejected a judicial reform proposal by Gutierrez late in March that an independent body be created to name new judges and insisted on an immediate disbanding of the new court named by pro-government legislators.

Ecuador's Supreme Court has been dissolved for the second time since December, when the pro-Gutierrez bloc of 52 lawmakers in the 100-seat unicameral Congress voted to remove the judges.

When he first dissolved the Supreme Court in December, Gutierrez promised to set up a new system aimed at choosing impartial judges. But he failed to find a compromise with the Congress, which rejected his call for a referendum on overhauling the courts.

Gutierrez, 48, was elected in late 2002 with support from the country's poor majority. But the former army colonel has alienated many supporters by negotiating with the International Monetary Fund and pursuing economic austerity policies.

Two Ecuadorian presidents have been brought down by popular unrest since 1997.

(Xinhua News Agency April 18, 2005)