Latin America —and Guatemala within it— has taken positive steps in recent decades to leave behind the vicious circle of military coups; It has also made progress in curbing massive past and present human rights violations. Likewise, there have been advances in the separation of powers, although, it is true, with timidity and misgivings to tighten that separation.
I must refer again to Guatemala, because justice is under attack there. After having discussed on this page (EL PAÍS, January 20, 2022) the persistent attacks and unsubstantiated complaints against Judge Erika Aifán, head of an active court in charge of processing serious corruption cases, several other blows have become visible — and serious—pointing to the deliberate weakening of the judicial system.
There are several regressive steps and they have a common denominator: a simultaneous and persistent attack against “Higher Risk” courts with jurisdiction in major cases of corruption and human rights violations.
First, the withdrawal of immunity from Judge Pablo Xitumul, one of the most renowned judges in Guatemala, stands out. Among other things, he is the one who criminally convicted in 2018 the soldiers responsible for the disappearance of Marco Antonio Molina Thiessen, a case on which the Inter-American Court of Human Rights had previously ruled. Xitumul has been experiencing other serious cases not only of human rights but of corruption. All the elements that led to the Supreme Court’s decision to withdraw his immunity point to the fact that it was fabricated and that scaffolding is under construction to remove him from the scene. International human rights organizations, headed by DPLF, have rejected what they describe as the “criminalization of Judge Pablo Xitumul” and denounce the persecution of justice operators.
Against judge Yassmin Barrios, another building is also being built for a trial and to remove her from an important case against the former head of the Organized Crime Prosecutor’s Office. In the alarming case of Erika Aifán, another pre-trial with similar explanations, origins and purposes is on the way, linked to an emblematic case that is the thread of the skein in Guatemala: corruption in the appointments of high courts called “Parallel Commissions I and II ”. A great paradox and a scandalous fact: magistrates of the Supreme Court, which is the entity that has to pronounce in favor or against the elimination of the preliminary hearing, would appear to be involved in the investigated facts; what has already happened with Xitumul.
As if this were not enough, this February of carnivals, investigations were also launched against former prosecutors who were part of the valuable Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI): former prosecutor Siomara Sosa and her lawyer Leyli Santizo. Sosa had been very active in the “Odebrecht case” and Santizo worked for several years at CICIG in charge of investigating high-ranking officials accused of being members of organized crime networks. The former prosecutor is reportedly being pressured to testify against her former FECI colleagues.
The Public Ministry has ordered raids on the homes of former prosecutor Sosa and her lawyer Santizo, where the former was detained. An arrest warrant was issued against Sosa, despite the fact that she voluntarily appeared in court to defend her innocence.
All this panorama has as background a recent modification to the Law of the Judicial Career. With it, the independence of the Council of the Judicial Career is reduced and the power of the questioned Supreme Court is reinforced, giving it the power to order transfers of judges. International instances for the protection of democratic values and human rights have already indicated the danger that the same body —such as the Supreme Court— concentrates jurisdictional and administrative powers, precisely at a time when its independence is being questioned.
Something that must be seriously investigated is how, and through which people, these networks of gross interference in justice and cunning and systematic attacks on judicial independence move at high levels of political power. The information available indicates that the high levels of political power would have shown such a degree of co-responsibility that it would seem that dark powers have appropriated powerful tools of control and subjugation of the judiciary. It is suspicious, for example, that the president and other members of the Supreme Court, whose mandate has expired, was not renewed 28 months ago, violating what the Constitution and the law say.
Within a framework that can only be defined as one of a systematic attack on justice, it is dramatic that this occurs not within a dictatorship but within the institutional framework of a Constitutional State of Law, thus draining it of its content. Only a blur remains of this in several countries of our America, while the international community, faced with a deterioration like the one occurring in Guatemala, keeps a low profile; multilateral bodies, idem.
There is, then, nothing of exaggeration in the title of this note. And, watch out, be careful that it spreads like gangrene if you don’t act.
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