For the most part, Guatemala’s justice institutions (prosecutors, judges, forensic experts, and public prosecutors) expanded their reach and staff during the four-year period analyzed. However, there were still significant gaps in coverage. As the accompanying chart shows, between 2014-2017 there was an average of about 6 judges for every 100,000 people in the country. This is below the national global average of 17. During that same period, there was an average of 13.5 prosecutors (investigative officers, assistant prosecutors, and section prosecutors) and 2 forensic experts per 100,000 people. The Monitor also found that a major challenge facing the Guatemalan justice system is excessive caseloads. For example, in 2017 judges were assigned on average nearly 430 cases per year, according to the available data. 

Processes for the selection of top-level judicial positions were vulnerable to external influence and manipulation (Attorney General, Magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice and Appellate Courts, and other courts in the same category). Despite progress creating a more transparent process inline with international standards, the elections have become hyper-politicized and adherent to special interests. Law school deans represent the majority of individuals serving on the nomination committees for these posts. This has given rise to the creation of fake law schools to gain access to the process. Because the responsible nomination commissions have a high degree of discretion in their decisions, this compromises the independence and integrity of the selection processes of the most important judicial authorities in the country. Although the laws governing selection processes are detailed, in the case of Guatemala, they contain loopholes that hinder efforts to implement merit-based selection processes.  Data shows that Guatemala’s primary justice institutions generally had a low rate of investigating and sanctioning justice operators accused of infractions despite measures to improve disciplinary procedures. Of the four institutions examined, the Public Prosecutor’s Office demonstrated a relatively higher level of ability to effectively carry out disciplinary proceedings against public prosecutors and other employees throughout 2014-2017. The other institutions showed little capacity to do so—for example, just under 14 percent of the complaints concerning judges and magistrates filed to the Judiciary disciplinary system ever resulted in a hearing. The accompanying chart tracks what kinds of disciplinary proceedings were filed in the Judiciary between 2014-2017.

An essential component to guaranteeing judicial independence is adequate budget allocation; this allows the justice system to fulfill its obligations and act impartially. The Guatemalan justice institutions analyzed during 2014-2017, were allocated, on average, just 5 percent of the national budget; with the agency in charge of forensics and the public defenders receiving less than 1 percent. With the exception of the Public Ministry in 2017, justice institutions consistently received less money than what they requested. The accompanying chart shows the available data for how much of the budget requests by various justice institutions ended up being allocated, as a percentage. 

The International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) supported the passage of key laws starting in 2009. These efforts, in particular the reforms pushed forward in 2016 and 2017, such as the Judicial Career Law, demonstrated that Guatemala’s Congress had the political will to cooperate with the Commission at certain times. Nevertheless, between 2014 and 2017, some important reforms were still pending approval due to a lack of cooperation and consensus in Congress, including reforms to the Pre-Trial Law (Ley en Materia de Antejuicio); to the Appeals, Habeas Corpus, and Constitutionality Law (Ley de Amparo, Exhibición Personal y de Constitucionalidad); and to Guatemala’s Constitution.

Institutionally, significant reforms were undertaken so as to cooperate with the work carried out by the CICIG. For example, in the judiciary, the system of High Risk Courts was expanded; at the MP, reforms to the Organic Law of the Public Prosecutor’s Office were implemented; and in the National Civilian Police, teams were designated to collaborate directly on the investigations and operations that the Commission supported.

The CICIG and MP’s investigations into President Jimmy Morales’s son and brother for corruption offenses exacerbated tension between the executive branch and the CICIG. This tension ultimately led to President Morales taking a series of actions that largely halted the Commission’s work and, therefore, the fight against corruption and impunity in Guatemala, which has served to weaken the rule of law.

Transparency International annually publishes the Corruption Perceptions Index, classifying countries according to the degree of perceived corruption of public and political officials. The index uses a scale between 0-100, 0 being the most corrupt, and 100 being the absence of corruption. The accompanying graphic shows where Guatemala is ranked on the Transparency International index from 2014 to 2017. As the graph shows, in 2017, Guatemala dropped seven places compared to 2016 (and became one of the Latin American countries with highest perceptions of corruption). According to Transparency International, it was close to becoming part of the bottom 10 countries perceived to be most corrupt, which are often countries at war or in economic crisis.

Guatemala’s government has passed several important reforms to existing laws that aim to improve its capacity to investigate and prosecute corruption offenses such as the Law against Organized Crime, the Law against Money Laundering and other Assets, and the Asset Recovery Law.

However, Guatemala still needs to pass additional reforms— specifically, laws that confront pervasive nepotism and conflicts of interest in Guatemalan politics and institutions— in order to better meet international anti-corruption standards and treaties.

The creation of new agencies within the Public Ministry, including the Special Prosecutor’s Office against Impunity, the Special Methods Unit and the Criminal Analysis Unit, have helped improve the capacity of the Ministry to investigate complex, large-scale corruption cases.  Many opportunities still exist for Guatemala to improve its justice system, particularly within the High Risk Courts of the Judiciary, the courts that process many complex corruption cases. The complexity of these cases, by virtue of the magnitude of the criminal organizations and networks judged, demand a review of logistical conditions and criminal procedure regulations. In this sense, it is considered appropriate to increase and improve the selection, induction and continuous training of those who work cases of this nature; establish an adequate judicial management model for the prosecution of organized crime, improve infrastructure and implement a greater use of technology. Likewise, it is necessary that those who exercise the judiciary carry out a filter attached to Law, in order to reduce the tactics of malicious litigation and the prolongation of the processes to the detriment of effective judicial protection. The graphic below shows the number of corruption cases filed, prosecuted, and resolved by the Public Ministry between 2014-2017, according to the data received and crimes analyzed. 

Oversight bodies, such as the Comptroller General of Accounts (CGC), which is responsible for auditing and overseeing proper use of public funds, need to strengthen processes aimed at keeping Guatemala’s institutions clean and transparent. Proactively improving accountability measures would go a long way in preventing the abuse of public resources. 

Strengthening the legal frameworks that discourage graft would enable Guatemala’s justice system to root out corruption preemptively, rather than relying on prosecutors to detect and investigate crimes only after they have taken place.

Between 2014 and 2017, justice sector institutions made commendable efforts and Congress advanced legislative reforms. These marked important institutional reforms and helped to strengthen internal regulations and align them with international standards. The Public Prosecutor’s office made important advances, such as strengthening the Analysis Unit, the adoption of new divisions among prosecutors’ offices, and the use of wiretapping, among other tools, which contributed to dismantling numerous criminal structures at the national level.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office has various prosecutors’ offices and specialized units to address the investigation and criminal prosecution of violence and organized crime activities. Among these specialized prosecutors’ offices are the offices against organized crime, drug-related crimes, money or asset laundering, extortion, human trafficking, kidnapping, crimes against life, and femicide, among others. The Public Prosecutor’s Office denied information requests regarding the number of personnel assigned to these offices. Financial data shows that, of these prosecutors’ offices and special units that provided budget information, they received 8.4 percent of the total budget allocated to the Public Prosecutor’s Office during the period analyzed. Additionally, there was a trend of an annual increase in the allocated budget, with the exception of the special prosecutors’ offices on organized crime and drug-related crimes, which suffered a reduction in 2015, and the office on money laundering, whose budget also decreased in 2015 and 2017.



In order to better fulfill its functions, the Judiciary implemented specialized criminal courts, such as high risk courts and those that hear of crimes of femicide, violence against women, and crimes of sexual violence, exploitation and human trafficking. These high risk courts and tribunals have been key in fighting violence and organized crime, yet they still lack adequate space and personnel. In the case of femicide and violence against women, the femicide courts and tribunals exist in 50 percent of the country’s departments. However, women from rural regions often do not benefit from these courts’ protection and services as they either don’t have access to the specialized jurisdiction or, in some departments, these bodies are made up entirely of men.  

Changes made within the Public Prosecutor’s Office to improve prosecutorial efficiency made way for important advances in strategic criminal prosecution, increasing the operational capacity of investigation processes. Thus, between 2015 and 2016, the office was able to dismantle 93 criminal structures with a total of 716 members.

The gap between the reality of the phenomenon of violence against women and convictions remains quite large. In 2017, at least 57 out of 100,000 women were subjected to femicide or other forms of violence against women. In that same year, of the men indicted by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, only 3 percent were convicted at trial.



The same gap is evident between the cases filed by special prosecutors’ offices and the number that results in convictions or acquittals. It is important to note that not all of the cases that are filed manage to be prosecuted and lead to a sentence in the same year. In other cases, due to various circumstances, cases may be filed or dismissed or resolved by other means that do not imply reaching an oral or public hearing. At other times, the complexity of the crime results in a prolonged investigation. Nevertheless, the advances of the Public Prosecutor’s Office are closely linked to strengthening the Judiciary, which also affects the prompt decisions of the cases that are admitted.

The Law of the National Civilian Police (Decree 11-97) establishes the minimum requirements for the induction and promotion of members of the police force. However, Guatemala lacks a Police Career Law that duly and transparently regulates the selection, training and management control mechanisms of police officers.

From 2014 to 2017, the size of the police force increased from 33,075 in 2014 to 39,376 in 2017. This is equivalent to a ratio of 209.2 for every 100,000 people in 2014 and 232.6 for every 100,000 people in 2017. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) recommends a minimum of 300 per every 100,000 inhabitants. This sustained increase of police officers allowed the institution to provide better police coverage and presence. Nonetheless, the data show that a wide gap exists within the institution in terms of gender and ethnicity. On average, female police officers represented 13.9% of the National Civilian Police (PNC), while male officers made up 86.1% of the force. Of the average 5,005 female police officers serving annually, 98.4% held entry-level ranks. At the same time, only 26% of the 6,804 people who graduated at entry-level ranks from the PNC Academy came from indigenous communities. In the case of the Police Officers’ School, this figure amounted to 33.3%. During the four years under study, a total of 4,967 disciplinary proceedings were initiated after complaints were filed against PNC members. Of these proceedings, approximately 90.6% took place against male police officers and 9.4% against female police officers; the majority (93.1%) were from entry-level ranks. Separately, 1,433 disciplinary proceedings were initiated through an internal process–meaning initiated by an authority of the institution upon having evidence of the commission of an act or infraction. Of these proceedings, 94.8% were filed against women police officers. This drastic discrepancy suggests that disciplinary proceedings initiated internally may be used to unduly punish or hinder the advancement of female police officers’ careers.  

The Ministry of National Defense denied the majority of public information requests submitted by the Central America Monitor that sought to analyze the size of the military and its participation in public security. The lack of transparency in this area is worrisome as the requests were for basic information and did not include information that could risk national security in any way. This failure to provide information not only prevents a comprehensive analysis of the military and its participation in internal policing, but also represents an alarming trend of opacity when it comes to civic oversight and accountability for possible human rights violations by the military in exercising police functions.

Starting in 2000, successive administrations and the Guatemalan Congress have cited public safety as a reason for enacting laws and agreements that grant a return to the participation of the military in police tasks, in full violation of the 1996 Peace Accords. In total, they adopted 7 agreements and decrees which allowed participation of the military in combating organized crime and common crime, surveilling the perimeters of pre-trial detention centers, prisons and rehabilitation centers, among others; maintaining order and security within jails and prisons; and allowing pursuit and detention of fugitive inmates and the custody of inmates. In addition, they established combined forces between military and police and consolidated coordination mechanisms of the Ministry of National Defense in all matters of internal and external security.

From 2014 to 2017, the army was allocated an average annual budget of Q70,444,267.50 ($9.1 million) to cover military participation in public safety tasks. The allocated amount grew each year, increasing 3.2% between 2014 and 2015, 5.6% between 2015 and 2016 and 4.6% between 2016 and 2017. According to consulted sources, a strong criticism at the time was that the expenses that the Ministry of Defense made in matters of security were paid for by the Ministry of the Interior. At the end of 2016, in the face of a growing social opposition to the militarization of the internal police function and under the leadership of the then Minister of Interior, the government announced a roadmap for the gradual withdrawal of the Guatemalan armed forces in citizen security tasks. The plan sought to completely remove the military from police functions in three distinct phases before the end of 2017. Despite some advances in the plan’s execution––as was the case with decrease of the military (from 30 zones to 11) and the withdrawal of some 2,100 troops––they failed to meet their initial timeline, and a final withdrawal was anticipated for March 2018.

The Human Rights Ombudperson’s Office received 172 legal complaints of human rights violations by the Army, an average of 43 complaints per year. These figures only represent the complaints received by the Ombudsperson’s Office and omit those cases that go unreported; as such, the true number of human rights violations is probably higher. In analyzing the level of public confidence in the Army, public surveys administered between 2015 and 2017 (no data is available for 2014) show little change between 2015 and 2016. In 2015, 42.8 percent of the population expressed great or some trust in the Armed Forces, while 54.4 percent had little or none. In 2016, 44.6 percent reported they had great or some trust, while 52.6 percent had little or none. However, 2017 showed a notable loss of trust in comparison with previous years, with 35.4 percent reporting great or some trust in the Armed Forces and 62.7 percent having little or none. Another important trend is revealed when the data is disaggregated by sex. In the three years under analysis, men reported having greater trust in the Armed Forces than women. For example, in 2017 42.2 percent of men and 29.4 percent of women reported having great or some trust in the Armed Forces, a gap evident in each year.

Between 2014-2017, civil society group the Human Rights Defenders Protection Unit (UDEFEGUA, by its Spanish acronym) recorded a total of 2,062 aggressions against rights defenders, including 529 cases of intimidation and 131 threats (in person, written, and via telephone). There was also a worrisome increase in the number of killings: between 2016 to 2017, killings of human rights defenders skyrocketed by 271 percent (from 14 killings in 2016 to 52 documented the following year). The killings of human rights leaders highlight significant issues in the protection of human rights in the country and in the strength of human rights investigations. Between 2014-2017, Guatemala saw some positive advances in terms of strengthening the capacity of the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Human Rights. The office was significantly expanded and its staffing levels increased; it now had seven special prosecutor’s units dedicated to various categories of human rights-related crimes. Despite these positive changes, there is a high degree of impunity for crimes against rights defenders and journalists. This is partly due to the failure to apply existing human rights legislation effectively. As the accompanying graphic shows, the vast majority of investigations opened by the special prosecutor’s office on human rights failed to result in convictions. 

In 2016, under the leadership of the Presidential Coordination Commission of the Political Executive in Human Rights Matters (COPRODEH), Guatemala’s government took initial steps to develop a public policy for protecting human rights defenders and establish better coordinating collaboration between various state institutions in accordance with a 2014 Inter-American Court ruling. The process continued during 2017, beginning with the first of five developmental phases of the process, which included discussions of the proposal with civil society organizations and State entities, accompanied by the PDH and the OHCHR. By the end of that year, the State of Guatemala had not yet approved the aforementioned policy.

Although approval of a public policy was still pending, there were institutions dedicated to the exchange of information and to providing protection for people in situations of risk, human rights defenders among them. 

These include the Body for the Analysis of Attacks on Human Rights Defenders, a temporary unit created in 2008 to analyze patterns of attacks on human rights defenders and coordinate quick responses for protection, and a protection mechanism managed by the Ministry of Interior. The Body for Analysis meetings include the Ministry of the Interior, the PNC Criminal Investigation Directorate, the Public Ministry, two human rights organizations, an international cooperation organization, as well as the PDH and Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as observers.

The Body has been a useful space for coordination and requests for quick responses to deal with risky situations. However, experts noted that the ability to analyze trends and attack patterns needed to be strengthened. The initiative faced serious problems between 2016 and 2017, as the Ministerial Agreement creating the Body for the Analysis of Attacks on Human Rights Defenders expired in 2016.

Harassment campaigns against human rights defenders, carried out through social media, work to delegitimize and discourage the defense of human rights in Guatemala.  In 2014-2017, civil society group UDEFEGUA recorded 428 cases in which rights defenders were criminalized, including 74 illegal detentions, 104 judicial detentions, 106 arbitrary detentions, and 244 cases of defamation.  The justice system must create internal mechanisms and measures that allow monitoring, identifying and deterring cases of criminalization of human rights defenders, often based on spurious and unsubstantiated accusations. This activity inflicts obvious harm to human rights defenders, to their security, dignity, freedom, integrity and, unfortunately, also to their lives.

Between 2014 and 2017, over 90 percent of requests for information were favorably resolved, resulting in the release of public information in compliance with the law, which strengthens transparency and accountability. However, 85 percent of requests were filed in the department of Guatemala, where the capital is located. This disparity poses a barrier to the right of Guatemalans to remain informed, and indicates that transparency laws are not being used to hold local governments accountable across the country’s interior.

Of the public security, defense, and justice institutions examined, between 2014 and 2017, the Judiciary issued the highest number of favorable responses to public information requests, with 98.8 percent of its responses resulting in the release of the requested information, followed by the Public Prosecutor's Office. Meanwhile, the Ministry of the Interior (whose authority covers the national police force) and the Ministry of Defense (which covers the armed forces) remained below 67 percent in terms of positive responses to public information requests. These percentages are not indicative of the overall quality of data.

Although all the institutions that manage public funds are required by law to have a portal to access public information, during the period analyzed, Guatemala lacked a central transparency portal. Many of the official websites of the public security and defense institutions did not fully comply with the national transparency law requirements, including the publication of data related to budgets, salaries, fees for contractors, and bidding processes, among other areas. This was particularly the case for the websites of the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Defense. 

Guatemalan law requires that all public officials and state employees submit official statements of their assets upon entering and leaving their job. However, under the law, all declarations are confidential and inaccessible to the public. During the period analyzed, the Comptroller General’s Office (Contraloría General de Cuentas, CGC), the entity responsible for auditing and imposing fiscal control over public funds, demonstrated a lack of capacity to effectively review the submitted statements, let alone verify the information with other institutions. Given its limitations, the CGC should consider prioritizing those positions where there is a greater risk of engaging in practices related to illicit enrichment, influence peddling and conflict of interest. Additionally, the necessary reforms should be adopted that would make the sworn statements of public officials publicly accessible.