Global Courant 2023-04-14 11:06:04
The end of the presidency of Dina Ochoa as titular magistrate of the Constitutional Court (CC) gives way to the arrival of magistrate Héctor Hugo Pérez Aguilera to lead the highest court, who in the first year of the eighth magistracy has been in the center of various controversies. Recent resolutions, all negative, of four objections related to candidacies, favorable for two pairs and adverse for another two, coincide with the change of post. And it is that since its integration, the current CC generated controversy, due to noises of political allegiances and obvious conflicts of interest.
The electoral campaign is already underway, for which reason the resolution of actions related to the process will mark the beginning of the management of Pérez Aguilera, since time is running against it. However, there is also a matter of national significance, with a high impact on thousands of young people’s lives and also in the historical nationalist sense. On this issue, the CC remains silent and continues to delay the resolution: the total exclusion of Guatemala from all international Olympic sport activity due to the suspension, ordered by the CC, of the reformed statutes at the request of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). This left national athletes in limbo. They would participate, although without the possibility of using the national colors, but the Olympic flag.
The decision of the CC, in the presidency of Ochoa, was not unanimous. He had a dissenting vote. He forced himself to take possession of the board of the Guatemalan Olympic Committee, which is not recognized by the IOC. The suspension went into effect on October 15. More than six months have passed and the highest court may be waiting for it to be resolved by inertia, but that will not happen. The IOC has already given guidelines for a civilized exit through a new election, of course, with the renewed statutes. The manifest inability to negotiate between the two directives in conflict and the silence of the CC prolong the uncertainty for our athletes. Nothing to be proud of.
Last January, the CC ignored the public by denying appeals against some 2016 electoral reforms, especially those that threaten freedom of expression and prevent healthy political debate. If they had been granted, the current blockades of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) would not exist for certain candidacies, since they would be left without matter. At the end of February, the CC protected an association of Guatemalan migrants that demanded better management of the vote in the United States, in charge of the TSE. They filed an action in the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) in October 2022 that never resolved it. They went to the highest court that granted them the provisional protection, requested information from the CSJ and nothing more was known: another harmful silence.
Judge Pérez Aguilera has experience in this institution. He was appointed as representative of the University of San Carlos de Guatemala in the midst of the mess caused by the questioned election of Walter Mazariegos as rector. Even so, he has it in his hands to leave a mark. The expectation is slight and also brief. The CC will have to address other issues of national impact, such as the legality of contributions from part-time workers to the Guatemalan Social Security Institute or promote the election, by voice, in Congress, of CSJ magistrates and appeals chambers. You can amend history or repeat it.
