Guatemala City — Guatemala’s newly elected constitutional court will have to work to regain the confidence of Guatemalans disillusioned with a justice system that serves the interests of a few, experts said Thursday.
Elected every five years by various institutions, Guatemala’s highest court returns four of its 10 magistrates, including alternates. Court decisions in controversial cases have been criticized for protecting people linked to drug trafficking, human rights abuses or corruption.
Experts say the new court is more balanced, but its decisions will confirm whether that is true.
“What it needs to do is recover the concept of a legal and technical court and not give decisions according to anyone,” said Carlos Luna Villacorta, a former alternative magistrate of the court. “It should inspire more confidence than anything else with its most controversial decisions.”
The new court was completed Wednesday when President Bernardo Arevalo announced his choices of former solicitor general Gladys Annabella Morfin and her alternate Maria Magdalena Zocola, a Kakchikel Maya lawyer and expert in indigenous issues.
Guatemala’s Constitutional Court is central to the country’s fight against corruption. The court ruled in high-profile cases on the fate of the International Anti-Corruption Commission and the release of former presidents accused of corruption.
The Constitutional Court is Guatemala’s highest and its decisions cannot be appealed. When there is a magistrate conflict or seven magistrates step in alternately on constitutional questions to be heard.
When former President Jimmy Morales ended the mandate of the anti-corruption commission, known as CICIG, in 2019, the Constitutional Court acted as an important democratic safeguard and ruled his decision unconstitutional.
But the court took a turn in 2021 when new magistrates were elected.
For example, in April 2024 the court upheld the release from prison of former President Otto Pérez Molina (2012-2015), who was convicted in two separate corruption cases.
In addition to Arevalo’s choices, the Supreme Court of Justice, Congress, the University of San Carlos and the country’s bar association each chose a magistrate and an alternate.
Four of the five chief magistrates will be women in the new court, which will sit in April.
Renzo Rosal, a political analyst, said the new court was “relatively balanced”.
“The court has a conservative leaning, but nothing else can be expected from the (Constitutional Court) because its essence is to apply the Constitution,” he said. “What we need is a group of magistrates who should stabilize (the court) and allow it to become an antitrust institution of justice that serves the people and not fake spaces as it is now.”
(tags to translate)corruption
