Red flag? Guatemala reins in crusading top prosecutor

Guatemala's top court decided to cut short the mandate of Attorney General Paz y Paz. If she is removed, high-profile criminal prosecutions could be disrupted or even terminated.

|
Moises Castillo/AP
In this Dec. 17, 2012 photo, Guatemala's Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz talks during an interview in Guatemala City.

Guatemala has had an extraordinary string of incompetent, bungling attorney generals who had turned a near blind eye to rampant corruption.

So when Claudia Paz y Paz came to office at the end of 2010, hopes were muted. Paz y Paz, who is the nation’s first female attorney general, far surpassed those hopes. Civic and human rights advocates around the hemisphere have hailed the strides she’s made on fighting organized crime, political corruption, and human rights abuses.

Precisely because of those strides, a decision by the nation’s Constitutional Court to cut short Paz y Paz’s four-year mandate by nearly six months has triggered some alarm bells. If the decision is carried out, Paz y Paz would leave office in May – seven months early – and ongoing criminal investigations could be disrupted, perhaps even terminated. It’s not hard to see a dark hand behind the move.

After all, look back only a few years to see the sinister figure who became attorney general for 17 days in 2010, apparently with the support of top politicians.

Both the US State Department and the UN-organized Anti-Impunity Commission have issued statements on Paz y Paz’s possible early departure.

Here’s what an spokesperson at the State Department, who asked to remain unnamed, issued:

We have enjoyed unprecedented cooperation with Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz in Guatemala and are disappointed to learn the Constitutional Court has ruled that her term should end in May of this year. The U.S. government looks forward to continuing our excellent cooperation with her through the end of her term.

As attorney general, Paz y Paz has made incredible progress in combating corruption and organized crime, and prosecuting human rights violations in Guatemala. To make this type of substantial progress, Paz y Paz directly confronted some of the toughest issues, focusing on building a culture of lawfulness and strengthening domestic institutions, especially the Attorney General’s Office.

We will follow the upcoming attorney general nomination and selection process extremely closely. We are hopeful that, regardless if Paz y Paz decides to seek another term, whoever is selected as attorney general embodies the honesty, courage, independence, and commitment to fighting impunity that Paz y Paz has demonstrated.

For its part, CICIG, the UN anti-impunity commission, hailed Paz y Paz for her “unwavering  commitment” and said her actions have been “a historic contribution to Guatemalan justice.”

The commission voiced concern that turmoil around the Constitutional Court’s ruling could impede its own lawyers’ work in helping Guatemalan prosecutors “to identify, prosecute and dismantle criminal structures.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Red flag? Guatemala reins in crusading top prosecutor
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2014/0210/Red-flag-Guatemala-reins-in-crusading-top-prosecutor
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe