Global Courant
For more than two years, no questioning of Executive officials has been made in the plenary session of Congress. And it is not because there are no pending citations or because there are no situations that warrant inspection: from the handling of anti-covid vaccines, rigged equipment contracts at the Chimaltenango Hospital, the secret signing of a collective agreement – clearly harmful – with the teachers’ union or the deficient maintenance and reconstruction of strategic roads are some of the causes of these procedures. However, requests accumulate on the agenda, but are not carried out.
The ordinary plenary sessions were reduced from August 2022 to just one per week, supposedly to promote work in committees, but in reality it was to allow deputies, especially district ones, to carry out promotional work in their districts, with a view to this year’s elections. However, although the vote of deputies occurred three months ago, plenary sessions remain weekly and are frequently canceled due to lack of quorum.
It is a symptom of dysfunctionality that the interpellation of the Minister of Education, Claudia Ruiz, and the Minister of Health, Francisco Coma, has been scheduled for November 24, 2022, without either of them having materialized. The trick of the agendas, set in a session of block heads, is to place the legislative interrogations as an agenda item, but preceded by other initiatives or discussion points. When the time approaches to question an official, pro-government deputies or supporters leave the chamber to prevent a minimum number of congressmen from being present.
In other cases, such as what happened this week, when the next point was an interpellation, the deputies simply do not appear at the plenary session and some do not even go to Congress. It is clear that this unhealthy game has already been agreed upon, because the officials mentioned do not even appear before the Legislature, a body that practically abdicates one of its main functions: that of supervising the Executive.
It is necessary to mention that in previous legislatures, real sabotage was carried out on the Executive, due to abuse in the frequency and duration of summonses. However, this is a permanent responsibility for Congress, so that there is a true balance of powers. In January 2022, the Constitutional Court issued an opinion that somehow granted certain flexibilities to Executive officials not to respond to subpoenas or not to respond to certain issues. However, the strategy of pro-government deputies of not going to the chamber when the first agenda item of the day is an interpellation has been notorious. Then comes a new agenda, in which this action once again remains in sixth or tenth point and sabotage is played again at the opportune moment.
It is not about going back to the past, when interpellation was an endless cycle of imprecise questions, but it is not possible to think about quality management if there is no one to supervise it. Three months and 18 days before the end of this legislature – and less than two until the end of the regular period of sessions – it would still be possible – but it is unlikely – to give a minimum sign of interest in questioning the inefficiencies and opacities of the Executive in the attention health, education or infrastructure.
Officialism disrupts legislative oversight
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