Caribbean & Central America - January 2024

Amid uncertainty as to whether Bernardo Arévalo, who convincingly won the 20 August presidential run-off election on an anti-corruption pledge, would assume office on 14 January (for more discussion of this see our sister Weekly Report), late last year Guatemala’s legislature acted on a constitutional court (CC) order to pick the new supreme court (CSJ) by mid-December. The appointments had been pending since 2019, held up initially by appeals filed against the process, and then by revelations of interference in the justice system by illicit groups. The CSJ and legislature are both aligned with the so-called ‘pacto de corruptos’, an allusion to corruption in Guatemala’s institutions, which Arévalo has pledged to take on. The latest CSJ appointments are unlikely to assuage impunity concerns.

As per Guatemala’s constitution, 13 CSJ and 135 appeals’ court magistrates are replaced every five years. However, the judges who served from 2014-2019 remained in their posts after the process of picking their successors hit various obstacles. Initially appeals were filed against the process of selecting the new justices while in 2020 a case known as the ‘parallel commissions case’, involving interference in the justice system by illicit groups, was presented by the attorney general’s special anti-impunity unit (Feci), at the time helmed by internationally-lauded prosecutor Juan Francisco Sandoval. Sandoval, who has since fled the country, was fired in July 2021 by US-sanctioned attorney general María Consuelo Porras (who Arévalo has accused of co-leading a coup d’état to prevent him from taking office).

The parallel commissions case centred around claims that Gustavo Alejos, the chief of staff to the late former president Álvaro Colom (2008-2012), had set up a scheme to influence the selection process. Alejos was sanctioned in April 2021 by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (Ofac). Along with Colom, he also featured on the US State Department’s so-called ‘Engel List’, published in June 2021 which includes individuals in the Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) accused of corruption, obstructing investigations into corruption, or undermining democratic process. Those featuring on the list are generally ineligible for visas and admission to the US.

On 7 November however, the CC set the 160-member unicameral legislature the deadline of 15 December to make the appointments (by that point more than four years overdue) which were duly finalised on 15 November. The composition of the CSJ is particularly crucial given that it often rules on requests to strip public officials of immunity from prosecution so that they can be investigated – a request filed against Arévalo himself in relation to a case widely considered spurious [WR-23-47].

Of the 13 newly appointed justices, three were accused by Feci of having met with Alejos in February 2020: Oscar Ruperto Cruz, Carlos Humberto Rivera, and José Luis de Jesús Samayoa. Another, Manuel Duarte, who was re-elected to the court, also featured on the US’ 2021 ‘Engel List’ for allegedly “abusing his authority to inappropriately influence and manipulate the appointment of judges to high court positions.” The local media reported that others had previously faced criminal investigations. According to a 16 November report by national daily Prensa Libre, these include Claudia Lucrecia Paredes and Gustavo Adolfo Morales Duarte, who have also been linked to Alejos (with Morales having reportedly been named in relation to the ‘parallel commissions’ case), and Héctor Ricardo Echeverría, who was included in a 2012 case entitled ‘judges of impunity’. The 2012 case was unveiled by the now defunct United Nations-backed anti-impunity commission in Guatemala (Cicig) which was shuttered under former president Jimmy Morales (2016-2020).

Exiled justice officials

On 22 November international human rights NGO Amnesty International (AI) released a new report flagging up concerns about the targeting of independent justice officials in Guatemala – a process which has gathered pace under the conservative government led by President Alejandro Giammettei who is an ally of Porras. The AI report cites data from local NGO Unidad de Protección a Defensores de los Derechos Humanos (Udefegua) which shows that in 2022 at least 73 Guatemalan justice officials, journalists, and activists were forced into exile.