Guatemala’s Attorney General for 8 years is bound to leave her office. She has been the nightmare of anticorruption prosecutors, human rights activists and transitional justice advocates. But does it signal profound change?
Jody García writes in Justice Info on the major change to the post of Attorney General with the removal of Consuelo Porras from the list of prospective candidates. Porras had been seeking a third term. It is unarguable that justice in Guatemala had taken a regressive turn since the appointment of Porras in 2018 with many agents of the judiciary having been jailed or forced into exile in the last number of years. While this development does provide hope is it too late?
After eight years as Guatemala’s Attorney General, lawyer Consuelo Porras was left out of the race for re-election for another four years. This marks a shift in Guatemala’s justice system, as during her tenure Porras dismantled the unit that investigated major corruption cases against prominent politicians and businesspeople, as well the one that brought retired military officers and politicians to face trials for human rights violations and war crimes committed during the country’s 36-year internal armed conflict (1960-1996).
At the end of April, after two months of work, a Nominating Commission compiled a list of six candidates and sent it to President Bernardo Arévalo, who was due to select the Attorney General that would lead the criminal investigations in the country.
Porras ran for a third time in office but was left out of the final list. Her chances of being re-elected for a new term were minimal, since in 2023 she accused Arévalo and his party, Movimiento Semilla, of winning the presidential elections after alleged irregularities in the party’s registration. This accusation, which has not been proven to date and was denied by international and national observers of the elections, led a judge to cancel the legal status of the political party that brought them to power. This ruling prohibits its members from using the Party’s name for a decade, has limited their ability to control the legislative agenda, and interferes with their capacity to run in the 2027 elections.
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As the new Attorney General takes office only a year before Guatemala’s general elections, the political context for the resumption of the fight against corruption and impunity for past crimes from the judicial institutions may not be too promising.
You can read the full piece, with links and photos here, Guatemala: The fall of Consuelo Porras.
Categories: Corruption, Criminalisation, Criminalization, Guatemala, Human Rights, Impunity, Justice
Guatemala Solidarity Network 
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