Top Guatemalan Court Suspends Judicial Appointments

The efforts of civil society in Guatemala have succeeded in pressuring the country’s Constitutional Court to suspend the appointment of top judges, due to concerns over irregularities in the nomination process.

El Periodico and Prensa Libre report that the court ruled four to one yesterday afternoon in favor of taking up challenges to the nominations presented by judicial reform and transparency advocacy groups like the Fundacion Myrna Mack and Accion Ciudadana.

These critics point to a lack of proper vetting of new Supreme Court and appellate court judges, noting that they were largely chosen as a result of backroom deal between the ruling Patriot Party (PP) and the opposition Renewed Democratic Liberty Party (LIDER). 

As mentioned in Wednesday’s brief, earlier in the week a group of around 50 judges attended a public display of support for Appellate Court Judge Claudia Escobar Mejia, who resigned her position in protest of the corrupt nomination process. With backing from international NGOs and UN allies, Escobar and her supporters called on the Constitutional Court to take up the challenges, threatening to hold a “partial” judicial strike if it failed to do so.

News site Nomada puts the civil society victory in further perspective, pointing out that anti-impunity activists have successfully frozen judicial appointments twice before, in 2009 and 2010. The latter instance caused the Constitutional Court to order the re-nomination of an attorney general, which led to the appointment of the celebrated Claudia Paz y Paz as the country’s top prosecutor.

Nomada also highlights a detail that went largely unnoticed in international coverage: the press conference in which Judge Escobar made her announcement was called by none other than the UN-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). Such boldly confrontational work, as well as its involvement in the prison corruption case of former army official Byron Lima Oliva, should put to rest fears that the CICIG is being sidelined in the final years of its mandate.

As a result of yesterday’s ruling, the planned October 13 inauguration of new Supreme Court and appellate court judges has been suspended for between 30 to 45 days while the Constitutional Court assesses the case.  In the meantime, the current judges will remain in their positions. Ultimately, if the Constitutional Court justices rule in favor of the civil society lawsuits, they will have to decide how far to wind the clock back. 

They could either force Congress to vote again on candidates selected by controversial “postulation commissions,” or force a restart of the entire four-month-long nomination process.

Not everyone is happy with the Constitutional Court decision. The Associated Press notes that the newly-nominated judges held a press conference yesterday to criticize the suspension as a de facto coup against the judicial system. And Prensa Libre reports that Orlando Blanco, congressional head of the center-left National Unity of Hope (UNE), claims that the ruling offers President Otto Perez an opportunity to lobby for more allies in the Supreme Court.

News Briefs

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