HomeNewsBriefGuatemala Judge Slams Corrupt Selection Process
BRIEF

Guatemala Judge Slams Corrupt Selection Process

GUATEMALA / 7 OCT 2014 BY ELYSSA PACHICO EN

A high court judge resigned from her post in Guatemala, denouncing the corrupt process by which justice officials are selected, in one of the most outspoken critiques yet from a Guatemalan judge. 

Claudia Escobar Mejia, one of the three judges who sit on Guatemala's Fifth Appellate Court, announced her resignation in a press conference on October 6. She was re-elected to the position just a week ago, but said that the selection process was "perverse" and "corrupt," as elPeriodico reported

Guatemala recently selected candidates for its appellate and Supreme Courts via a system that -- as InSight Crime reported in a special series, "The War for Guatemala's Courts" -- has been co-opted by special interests. Escobar is the most prominent appellate judge yet to criticize the process, which she called a "spoils system."  

"I've been re-elected for another five years, but in light of how seriously corrupted the process is, and out of respect for the job that I've been elected to do and respect for the Guatemalan people, and after a long period of reflection, I quit," she said. 

By her assessment, only 25 percent of the candidates who were nominated as judges had the necessary experience, she added. 

InSight Crime Analysis

Escobar probably had something else on her conscience besides the corrupt selection process. The day before the appellate court judges were approved by Congress, the Fifth Appellate Court -- where Escobar served -- overturned a ruling by Guatemala's highest electoral authority that Vice President Roxana Baldetti could not serve as secretary general of her political party and vice president at the same time, as this goes against Guatemala's Constitution. During her press conference, Escobar confirmed that she and the other judges came under pressure from Guatemala's executive branch to rule in favor of Baldetti. 

SEE ALSO: Backroom Justice: the War for Guatemala's Courts

Notably, Escobar singled out the postulation committees -- made up of university law school deans, judges, and others -- as a primary reason why the selection process for judges should be considered illegal. As InSight Crime has reported, these committees have been hijacked by special interests and have contributed to Guatemala's transformation into something close to a mafia state.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

COCAINE / 3 AUG 2023

A new book by journalist Deborah Bonello examines the roles women play in organized crime and argues that their participation…

ELITES AND CRIME / 1 DEC 2021

On July 5, 2019, one of Guatemala’s deadliest and most infamous corruption cases landed in the murky world of the…

GUATEMALA / 8 DEC 2021

A transnational labor trafficking network brought dozens of individuals from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico to the United States under the…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…