This story [1] was originally published on OpenDemocracy.net/en/.

This story [1] was originally published on OpenDemocracy.net/en/.
License: Creative Commons 4.0 - Attributions/No Derivities/
international.
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Attacks against women justice defenders threaten rule of law in Guatemala
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Date: None

Porras has suffered different forms of judicial harassment, hate speech and stigmatisation campaigns on social media. In the last two years alone, more than 60 complaints were made against her in response to various Constitutional Court decisions, often regarding corruption and human rights.

At least 20 complaints are still pending. Two have already reached Congress, which will decide whether or not to remove Porras’s immunity as a judge – only in case she is reappointed, since, because of Congress’s refusal to reappoint her, she is currently facing prosecution.

One relates to Porras’s defence of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), an international, UN-sponsored body tasked with investigating corruption and impunity in Guatemala. In operation from 2006 to 2019 the CICIG is seen as an example of successful international collaboration to investigate and prosecute illegal security groups and clandestine organisations in Guatemala, including networks of corrupt politicians.

This success made many in the country’s ruling elite nervous, including former president Jimmy Morales, who left office in 2020 and is currently being investigated for corruption as a result of a process initiated by the CICIG. Morales’ decision to end the CICIG’s mandate in 2019, and not allow its head, Iván Velásquez, to return to the country in 2018, was deeply controversial and led to national and international outrage.

The refusal to reappoint Porras as judge cannot be seen as separate from these and other earlier attempts to undo the important progress made to combat corruption and impunity. The decision to not reappoint Porras removed her immunity. To avoid arrest, she currently finds herself in Washington.

Women fighting impunity

Unfortunately, Porras is not the first woman within Guatemala’s judiciary to face harassment or be exiled as a result of their commitment to fighting impunity and upholding the rule of law.

In 2014, former attorney general Claudia Paz y Paz also saw no alternative but to flee the country at the end of her term of office, which also meant the end of her immunity from malicious prosecution and other forms of harassment. She now lives in Costa Rica. Paz y Paz had received international praise for her success in cleaning up the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which until then had been notorious for its inefficiency and corruption.

Under Paz y Paz’s leadership, important progress was made in cases related to corruption and gross violations of human rights. The most important was the investigation and prosecution of the country’s former dictator Ríos Montt for crimes against humanity and genocide against the Ixil population in the 1980s during the civil war.

The Ixil genocide case was presided over by judge Yassmin Barrios – another example of the courageous women leading Guatemala’s battle against impunity. Like many other independent prosecutors and judges, Barrios regularly faces threats and intimidation. Just ten days after it was issued, the verdict in the genocide case was overturned by the Constitutional Court – with Judge Gloria Porras dissenting – due to alleged procedural errors.

[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/attacks-against-women-justice-defenders-threaten-rule-law-in-guatemala/