Guatemala Court Rules to Curb Crusader

Guatemala Court Rules to Curb Crusader
By ELISABETH MALKINFEB. 6, 2014

MEXICO CITY — Guatemalan politics were thrown into disarray on Thursday after the country’s highest court ruled that the crusading attorney general, Claudia Paz y Paz, must step down in May, seven months before her four-year term was to end.

The ruling on Wednesday by the Constitutional Court was condemned by local and international human rights organizations, who said it was a victory for groups that opposed Ms. Paz y Paz’s dogged prosecutions of organized crime and of retired military officers accused of rights violations, including the former dictator Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt.

Congress met Thursday to begin the process of choosing the next attorney general, but failed to muster a quorum. In a sign of political battles to come over the complex selection process, more than a third of the legislators did not turn up to vote.

Ms. Paz y Paz also filed an appeal to the Constitutional Court, although she was asking the same judges who had cut short her tenure to reverse their decision. Since she was appointed in December 2010, she has worked to reverse a tradition of impunity in Guatemala, which is besieged by drug trafficking, corruption and other crimes. She has been helped by a special United Nations commission of international prosecutors. At the same time, President Otto Pérez Molina has increased her budget and allowed her to work unimpeded.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/07/world/americas/guatemala-court-rules-against-official.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0