Global Courant
Without delay or dilatory delegations, the Constitutional Court is facing a royal test to demonstrate that it exists to defend Democracy, the rule of Law and respect for the sovereign citizen will expressed at the polls. The amparo actions filed last night in the CC by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal against the attorney general, Consuelo Porras, and Judge Fredy Orellana to stop any theft of electoral records or material constitute a historic act of safeguarding constitutional institutions, for which must be supported immediately.
The argument of supposed sovereignty invoked by prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche to break into the TSE headquarters, using an excessive and intimidating police contingent, is inadmissible. The prosecutor points out interference by the Organization of American States for having denied arguments of irregularities in the process and not having endorsed the MP’s narrative. Perhaps he does not remember that it was he himself who voluntarily showed Secretary General Luis Almagro the file of a confidential case. Furthermore, the excuse of “sovereignty” is diluted when the sovereign will of the citizenry is being endangered by attacking the custody of electoral documents that only the TSE can safeguard.
The declaration of confidentiality regarding the investigation generates, however, a sovereign distrust regarding the purposes of the entire chain of actions undertaken by the MP and Judge Orellana against the TSE and the electoral process. The opening of boxes with votes was abject, unprecedented and unjustified. Now an attempt would be made to steal, according to the Court’s complaint, the originals of the minutes in which the People’s decision is recorded.
Such violation cannot be excused in the search for evidence, since this denotes insufficient legal basis or total arbitrariness. That is why the pronouncement of the plenary session of TSE magistrates, before the filing of amparos, was timely to ask the CC, as the maximum guarantor of respect for the principles, foundations and rights embodied in the Magna Carta, to rule ex officio to safeguard the electoral process and the democratic system that gives it its reason for being.
The TSE’s call to all political parties, as well as elected mayors, deputies, president and vice president, to speak out in favor of democratic integrity in a process with already official results is significant. It is neither logical nor plausible that through a thousand supposed anonymous complaints an attempt is made to trample on the will of millions of Guatemalans. The lawsuits filed against the judges are part of the chain of pressure. The Supreme Court of Justice should have rejected them, but continues to delay the resolution.
At this critical point in Guatemalan democracy, as serious or more serious than the Serranazo, it is necessary to maintain sanity. The institutions must function in accordance with the spirit of the laws and not according to “the intention of certain groups to destabilize and delegitimize the electoral process,” according to the TSE. This weekend should not pass without the constitutional magistrates meeting urgently, not only to resolve the amparos, but also the jurisdictional appeal requested by the TSE. This will also establish whether the actions of certain prosecutors may constitute possible crimes against the political order of the State disguised as bombastic rants that border on fraud.
CC must safeguard democracy
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