Caribbean & Central America - April 2016 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Following the controversy over the election of Guatemala’s 13-member supreme justice court (CSJ) in late 2014 [RC-14-11], the appointments for the five-member constitutional court (CC), which were finalised last month, attracted scrutiny. The new CC will also subject to final review, ground-breaking cases exposed by the United Nations (UN)-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (Cicig), along with the Attorney General’s office, such as the La Línea corruption case which forced the resignations last year of former President Otto Pérez Molina (2012-2015) and his vice president Roxana Baldetti.

The new magistrates – who serve five-year terms – comprise one representative each from the CSJ, the executive, congress, the bar association (Cang), and San Carlos University (Usac). President Jimmy Morales’ choice of Justice Dina Josefina Ochoa Escribá raised eyebrows given she had featured in a 2012 Cicig report entitled Judges of Impunity. Acknowledging these doubts, President Morales issued a press release, claiming that Cicig’s chief, Iván Velásquez, had signed two statements, in June 2014 and September 2015, in which he ruled out any “issue of impunity” with regard to Ochoa.

The other choices were Gloria Porras (current CC president), selected by the legislature; Bonerge Mejía, a former Usac dean picked by Cang; José Francisco de Mata Vela (Usac); and Neftaly Aldana (CSJ). Overall, the process of electing the CC justices, who take up their posts on 14 April, attracted less criticism than that of the CSJ. Yet international human rights groups (see sidebar) and UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Mónica Pinto, had doubts. In a 14 March statement, Pinto warned that the process had failed to fulfil “basic principles of transparency and objectivity”, although she did not provide further details.

• Transparency concerns

In a 9 March press release, a coalition of international NGOs including the Washington Office on Latin America (Wola) said that “President Jimmy Morales has failed to commit to the spirit of transparency, providing scant information regarding how he is fulfilling his mandate to select a Constitutional Court justice”. The statement notes that Morales failed to divulge “the process or the criteria by which he will make a final selection” or provide an opportunity for the public “to present complaints (tachas) or voice their concerns regarding candidates”. The statement notes that while “President Morales is not legally obliged to follow the Selection Commission law, it is deeply troubling that, in an era where the importance of transparency in a democratic society is well understood, the leader of the country would resist his constituents’ legitimate demands for information regarding his decision”.