By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Dec 19 2005 (IPS)

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) called for reforms of the Guatemalan justice system, pointing to corrupt practices like the “buying” of verdicts and meddling by political and economic interest groups.

ICJ Secretary-General Nicholas Howen said that since taking office in January 2004, the Guatemalan government of President Oscar Berger “has shown a much greater commitment to human rights; reform of the judiciary is now on the agenda.”

The Geneva-based ICJ underlined that efforts were needed to curb the lynching of suspected criminals, which has become an increasingly common practice in Guatemala.

The authorities must also investigate who is responsible for the “disturbing increase” in physical attacks on judges, prosecutors and human rights defenders, it added.

In 2004 and the first half of this year, there was an increase in the number of attacks, many of them fatal, on judges, lawyers and prosecutors, ICJ expert José Zeitune told IPS.

The Myrna Mack Foundation reported that six judicial functionaries were killed in the first six months of the year. The Guatemalan human rights group takes its name from a local anthropologist who was killed in September 1990 by the military regime ruling the country at the time.

Authoritarian governments, military dictatorships, successive coups and the 1960-1996 armed conflict left 150,000 – mainly indigenous – people dead and 50,000 “disappeared”, according to a report by the project for the Recovery of Historical Memory presented in April 1998 by the Catholic Church.

The report blamed 90 percent of the human rights violations on the Guatemalan army.

The armed conflict and brutal government repression occurred in a society marked by the political and economic exclusion of broad sectors of society, especially the country’s indigenous people, who comprise 40 percent of the population of more than 14 million.

The ICJ noted that the poorest 40 percent of Guatemalans receive nine percent of the income, while the wealthiest 20 percent receive 64 percent.

Other figures show that 56.2 percent of the population was living below the poverty line in 2000, and that 76 percent of the poor are indigenous.

A peace accord signed by the government of Álvaro Arzú and the leftist National Guatemalan Revolutionary Unity (URNG) guerrilla alliance brought the armed conflict to an end in December 1996.

But nearly a decade later, “the judiciary is only limping towards independence and strength, while impunity for past human rights violations is still entrenched,” said Howen.

“The judiciary and prosecutors are too weak and unsupported to tackle this tragic legacy,” he added.

On two visits to Guatemala this year, the ICJ saw firsthand the pressure to which the justice system is subjected in Guatemala, especially judges, lawyers and prosecutors dealing with cases involving human rights violations or organised crime.

On Apr. 25, Judge José Orozco, who was handling drug trafficking cases, was shot and killed in the southern Guatemalan city of San Pedro Sacátepequez. Other officials in the same court received death threats.

Two days later, prosecutor José Meléndez Sandoval, who was working on cases of organised crime, drug trafficking and corruption, was shot as he left his house in Malacatán, in the western department (province) of San Marcos.

The ICJ said the government should investigate these attacks, which “seriously undermine the state of law,” and bring the perpetrators to justice.

It also told the Guatemalan government that “from now on Congress should appoint all senior judges regardless of their political affiliation or other improper considerations, to end the cycle of favours and bring impartiality to the courts.”

Zeitune pointed out that two of the magistrates on the constitutional court are clearly aligned with the former governing party, the right-wing Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG), led by former dictator General Efraín Ríos Montt (1982-1983).

The two magistrates, Ruiz Wong – a former interior minister – and Manuel Florez – also a former official in the previous FRG administration – did not recuse themselves when the Court considered the extradition request for ex-president Alfonso Portillo (2000-2004), who is facing corruption charges and took refuge in Mexico.

On its last visit to Guatemala, the ICJ received information on corruption in the judiciary, from telephone calls from politicians to judges, to the purchase of verdicts by economic interest groups or organised crime, said Zeitune.

The ICJ also stated that “the government and Congress should both reject a draft law that would give military courts jurisdiction for all crimes by current or former military personnel – a proposal that goes against international law, would shield perpetrators from responsibility and perpetuate impunity.”

Military courts can only try military personnel for “unique military crimes” such as desertion, not offences like robbery committed outside of military jurisdiction, said Zeitune. He maintained that the draft law currently under consideration in Congress, if approved, would amount to an “unacceptable setback.”

If the bill is passed, human rights crimes that have not yet been tried, such as those committed under past dictatorships, would fall under the jurisdiction of the military courts.

That would perpetuate the impunity already surrounding the abuses committed by the de facto regimes, which is alarming in a democracy, said Zeitune.’

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