The president of the Nomination Committee for the election of Supreme Court justices, Miquel Cortés, as well as the secretary Roberto Hernández and the undersecretary, José Andrés Reyes, will visit the facilities of the Judicial Branch (OJ). The proposal came out today from the meeting of the commissioners who for the third consecutive day have not reached agreements to decide where the work site will be for the next few months.
Currently, the magistrates (Supreme Court of Justice) together with a group of commissioners elected by the College of Lawyers and Notaries of Guatemala (Cang) insist that the development of the work of the commission be carried out in the Courtroom of the OJ. But they do not get the 25 votes that are required and in the voting rounds there are between 21 and 22 votes in favor.
The other group, made up of deans and a list elected by the Cang, requests that the headquarters remain at the Rafael Landívar University. However, the votes are insufficient to approve this proposal.
“The visit will be to gather information for the discernment. The objective is to go and verify and be certain of the logistics offered by the possible venue,” Cortés said, after more than an hour of debate among the commissioners on which place should be ideal for the work of the commission.
At yesterday’s meeting, 21 commissioners voted to move the headquarters to the OJ, while 13 reiterated their vote to use the university facilities.
The debate
“I want to tell you that each of us was a student and we all graduated from one of the universities represented here…in a solemn ceremony we go to the Supreme Court of Justice and they swear us in, those are the steps to practice the profession,” this is how Commissioner Jorge Cano justified his position of moving the headquarters to the OJ. “The Judicial Branch is in my blood,” he concluded in his speech.
After that, several positions were expressed, pointing out that the issue of the venue is an “unnecessary block” strategy and proposing to modify the agenda and move forward with the discussion of the agenda.
“We would all like to move forward on that,” said Judge José Alejandro Ortiz, noting that moving forward and leaving aside the issue of the venue could “lead to an error and then lead to committing an illegal act.” He added that this decision-making could affect some commissioners and those who want to run.
Commissioner Armando Ajín took the floor and asked for a historical review of the minor errors that have been committed in the nomination committees, and recalled that processes have been suspended in specific cases. “All I do is comply with the law, I call for literal compliance with the law, we are not trying to trap anything.”
Modify the agenda
The candidate made progress in the discussion of the use of technological tools for the commission. Pedro Reyes, director of Technology and Information Technology at Rafael Landívar University, explained that this will consist of two instruments: a document manager and a website, which received several recommendations.
The commission will meet on Tuesday, August 6 at 9 a.m.
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