Taking into account the institutional weakening and the crisis of independent justice in Guatemala, the International Association of Judges:
− Urges the Guatemalan authorities to comply with international guarantees and standards in the exercise of the judicial function, preventing the criminalisation without cause of high-risk judges and any other jurisdiction who have been prosecuted through the instrumentalization of the criminal process as a distorting element of judicial independence, causing the exile in the last three years of at least 24 judges and prosecutors who, through their work, sought to investigate corruption networks in the country.
− Urges the Public Prosecutor's Office to investigate the acts of intimidation and threats to which independent judges are subjected on a daily basis, through social networks, the media and other organisations established in Guatemala, with the aim of intimidating them.
− Requests the real and immediate fulfilment of the precautionary and provisional measures issued in favour of several Guatemalan judges, such as the case of judges Miguel Ángel Gálvez, Jazmín Barrios and Pablo Xitumul, issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in favour of their personal integrity and their function without internal and external interferences that hinder their impartiality.
− Urges the State of Guatemala to comply with the peace accords signed in December 1996, to regulate the system for the election of Supreme Court and Appellate Justices, in accordance with international standards that guarantee judicial independence.
Tel Aviv (Israel) 21st of September 2022