Guatemala hopes basic approach will fix war-scarred legal system

Sunday, May 21, 2000 | 1:51 a.m.

GUATEMALA CITY - Jose Quesada says Guatemala's legal system remains as disorganized, repressed and impotent as it was during the dark days of the 36-year civil war. And he's the president of the Supreme Court.

Others are less kind.

"It has gotten to the point where individual cases do not matter anymore. They are lost in a sea of corruption," said Helen Mack, a human rights lawyer. "The justice system here is broken - end of story."

According to United Nations data, only one in 10 murder cases in Guatemala ever gets to a courtroom.

High-profile human rights cases are next to impossible to try because of the harassment of everyone in the legal system, from witnesses to bailiffs to judges.

Many judges and prosecutors are denied health insurance because the threats and intimidation they face make their jobs too dangerous, a U.N. Human Rights Commission report said in March.

For a study in intimidation, there is the high-profile case of Roman Catholic Bishop Juan Gerardi, a campaigner against human rights abuses by the government. In the two years since he was bludgeoned to death, a parade of key officials has fled the country citing death threats. They include a judge, a pair of prosecutors and a gaggle of witnesses.

The U.N. report also criticized the legal system for the inexperience and poor training of its officers and its discrimination against Indians.

The government says it is trying to improve the judicial system. Last year, authorities levied more than 1,200 sanctions against Guatemala's 600 or so judges, firing 13 and suspending one.

"That is part of our effort to restore respectability to the office of judge," said Quesada, the Supreme Court president. "But for now, nobody is going to respect a judge presiding over a court that is falling apart."

After several failed attempts to overhaul the entire system in a matter of months, authorities are now working on a number of projects to rebuild the crumbling court system "little by little," Quesada said.

One program involves $100 million in loans from the World Bank and from the Netherlands to improve court administration. By putting a court clerk at each tribunal, the program has streamlined case loads and improved access to the legal system, observers say.

But administrative reforms have meant very little outside the capital, where simple courtrooms often feature a faded Guatemalan flag, tables and chairs that don't match and a sauna-like swelter unimpeded by air conditioning or even a ceiling fan.

One advance has come in rural areas, where Guatemala has created six small legal clearinghouses. The "Justice Centers" partner judges, lawyers, police officers, municipal representatives and military officials in an effort to resolve disputes before they enter the overcrowded legal system.

In a recent report, the U.S. State Department called the centers "one of the system's most successful reform efforts."

With its new system starting to take hold, the government has financed the creation of more than 200 new judgeships over the past five years - new judges who are becoming accustomed to clutter-free dockets from day one.

Judges play an especially pivotal role in Guatemala because a three-judge panel renders verdicts in criminal trials instead of a jury.

A second element of the reform program is the new School of Judiciary Studies, where more than 400 judge's assistants and lawyers with aspirations to sit on the bench have been trained on the powers and limitations of a judgeship.

The reform program also includes plans to increase the salary of judges, who currently make an average of 240,000 quetzales a year, or about $30,000.

But Quesada said the reforms do not address the biggest problem still plaguing the legal system - fear.

Human rights groups say most of the serious threats against court personnel come from individuals or fringe groups with ties to the military. Organized crime groups and drug rings also are often blamed for intimidation.

"It is a lie to say that everyone dressed like me does not think about that," said one judge, who spoke only on condition of anonymity as he dragged on a cigarette in the hall outside a criminal courtroom. "There is danger for us."

Others closest to the legal process maintain that despite the reforms, only time can truly heal Guatemala's legal wounds.

"Judges here have operated for so long under repression that most of them aren't used to the kind of respect they now deserve," said Alfredo Balsells, a lawyer and co-author of the 1999 Truth Commission report.

"It is going to take a long time before they really begin to understand their jobs again."

---

On the Net:

State Department human rights report: http://www.state.gov/www/global/human(underscore)rights/