Caribbean & Central America - February 2017 (ISSN 1741-4458)

In less than a year, three supreme justice court (CSJ) magistrates have been stripped of their immunity and forced to step down following investigations by the United Nations (UN)-backed anti-impunity commission in Guatemala (Cicig) and the attorney general’s office (AG). Hailed by civil society groups, the moves against the judiciary suggest this remains one of the current focuses of Cicig’s efforts. The changes in the judiciary are attracting particular attention given that the brother and son of President Jimmy Morales – Samuel Everardo Morales Cabrera and José Manuel Morales Marroquín respectively – were arrested last month on fraud charges [RC-16-10].

The 158-member unicameral national congress voted on 2 February to strip CSJ justice Blanca Aída Stalling Dávila of her immunity from prosecution in order that she could be investigated for influence trafficking allegations. Stalling, who was then arrested six days later, is accused of seeking to meddle in a decision by a sentencing court on behalf of her son, Otto Fernando Molina Stalling, who was arrested in 2015, along with members of the directorate of the national social security institute (IGSS), for his suspected involvement in a corruption case.

Stalling has also been linked to a larger, interconnected network of judicial corruption, nicknamed “el Bufete de la Impunidad” (Law Firm of Impunity), uncovered in 2015 by Cicig and the AG, which connected clients to judges willing to rule in their favour. Also implicated in this network was Marta Josefina Sierra González de Stalling, Stalling’s sister-in-law and fellow justice. González de Stalling was accused of authorising the release on bail and house arrest of six suspects involved in the corruption ring uncovered in the tax authority (SAT), known as ‘La Línea’, which was allegedly headed up by disgraced former President Otto Pérez Molina (2012-2015) who was forced to quit in 2015.

The move against Stalling follows the resignations last year of two of her colleagues from the 13-member CSJ – justices Vladimir Aguilar and Douglas René Charchal Ramos. Both were similarly stripped of their immunity to face investigation in May 2016 with regard to another influence trafficking case implicating Pérez Molina. The case involved the awarding of a 25-year contract to the local branch of Spanish company Terminal de Contenedores Barcelona (TCB) to operate the container terminal at Puerto Quetzal (TCQ) in Escuintla department [RC-16-06].

Another move against the CSJ

In a further move hailed by civil society groups, on 30 January the constitutional court (CC) annulled the result of the September 2016 election of CSJ justice Silvia Patricia Valdés Quezada, who took up the post in October for the 2016-2017 term. The CC’s ruling was in line with an appeal filed by a leading local civil-society group, Fundación Myrna Mack. The appeal was based on anomalies regarding the composition of the CSJ plenary on the day that Valdés was elected, as it did not comprise the 13 CSJ justices but only 12 plus an alternate magistrate, which was in breach of procedure.

While Fundación Myrna Mack had objected to Valdés’s election on procedural grounds, her election had also been criticised by human-rights groups amid doubts as to her impartiality regarding President Morales. These concerns stemmed from Valdés’s response to a September 2016 tweet critical of President Morales by Carmen Aída Ibarra, the director of ProJusticia, a local human-rights group. Valdés came to Morales’s defence, tweeting in response to Ibarra’s remarks: “He is trying to do things well. Leave him to govern in peace. As if he were Harry Potter with a magic wand!”, which left ProJusticia and other civil-society groups questioning Valdés’s political impartiality.

• Corruption Perceptions Index

The 2016 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) by international anti-corruption NGO Transparency International (TI), released on 25 January, showed Guatemala unchanging in its score compared with the previous year, scoring 28 (where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 very transparent) and ranking 136^th out of 176 countries. This was the second-worst score in Central America, ahead only of Nicaragua (145; 26).