The nomination committees for the courts of justice remain in a stalemate due to the lack of a majority of votes to approve decisions. One way to explain the dynamic is the constitution of a veto force, made up of the majority of the deans and the commissioners of Unidad por la Justicia, which broke with the traditional dynamic, according to the Asociación Diálogos.
In the election of the secretary and the discussions about the headquarters, the Projusticia Movement has identified a first correlation of forces in the commission for the Supreme Court of Justice: 15 commissioners who are inclined to maintain the headquarters at the Rafael Landívar University and 22 among the groups related to Nester Vásquez, Roberto López Villatoro and Estuardo Gálvez.
María del Carmen Peláez, from the Diálogos Association, identifies three large sectors, which have to do with the design of the commissions, the academy, that is, the deans and the president of the commission, who “show a tendency to privilege technical criteria; the magistrates of Appeals whose conduct and decision-making is oriented to preserve the system with the rules of the game, there is a clear incentive for this to be so because it must be remembered that the majority is interested in being re-elected.” The third is made up of the commissioners of the College of Lawyers and Notaries of Guatemala (Cang) who represent a greater breadth, due to the magnitude of the electorate: 15,500 members who participated in the election.
In other processes, the Cang commissioners have had criteria similar to those of the magistrates, Peláez explains, but in this process, list 8, “reformism” represents a fracture of traditional power.
The veto group – which represents 14 to 15 votes – is positive, according to Peláez, because it opens the opportunity for “it to be difficult for disastrous decisions to be taken, because there is a strong actor who opposes them.”
Inertia
The group is responding to inertia, according to Gregorio Saavedra, elected commissioner from list 8. “The consensus is on democratic principles,” said Saavedra at the start of the process and noted that there have been no rapprochements beyond the first session that has lasted two weeks.
Regarding the possibility of forming a group that would move from veto power to decision-making, which would allow the recovery of the courts of justice, Saavedra considered that “it is necessary to reach consensus, but we have to make it happen within the commission, especially to raise the level of profiles, which could inspire the participation of suitable candidates.”
In opposition, Armando Ismael Ajín is one of the actors with the most interactions in the nominating committees, a lawyer known for the defense of Gustavo Alejos; former advisor to the Vamos bloc and until June, a graduate professor at the USAC Faculty of Law, among other aspects of his career.
In the Cang elections he ran for the slate 5, which is in line with Walter Mazariegos. Ajín has told the press that he only votes for what he considers correct.
In Peláez’s opinion, Ajín and the commissioners who vote online seem to represent fairly clear interests so that “things remain as they are, so that the rules of the game continue to function as they have until now; it is not difficult to think that there are perverse interests behind this, such as the instrumentalization of justice or guaranteeing impunity in some specific cases.”
The cost and warranty
The group of 14 commissioners is based on ten deans, except for the representatives of Usac and Regional. In other processes, the deans have been on the side of transparency, meritocracy, independence and objectivity according to María del Carmen Peláez of Asociación Diálogos.
For this process, the group has grown and is now a veto player. There is a stalemate, but it gives us a guarantee that decisions contrary to transparency, independence and objectivity will not be adopted, Peláez pointed out.
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