An Appeals Chamber ordered that the new Board of Directors and the Court of Honor of the Bar Association and Notaries of Guatemala (CANG) assumed their positions, despite the fact that the outgoing authorities intended to extend their mandate for a challenge not yet resolved.
Behind that conflict there are key decisions for the justice and policy of the country, under the responsibility of CANG.
Patricia Gámez, new president of the Board of Directors, and Alicia Franco, president of the Court of Honor, will occupy a chair in the application commission that will choose the new head of the Public Ministry (MP) in 2026.
In addition, the CANG, by vote of its guild, will designate a substitute titular magistrate for the Constitutional Court (CC). The same will happen with the next integration of the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE).
The play of powers
These positions and others make the Bar Association and Notaries of Guatemala (CANG) a political platform for those who aspire to occupy them. As? Carmen Aída Ibarra, director of the Projusticia movement, explains that one of the mechanisms is established through the academic unity of that guild.
Lawyers looking for those positions, and who have the support of the CANG authorities, give conferences or workshops aimed at their members. In this way, they promote their figure and win supporters for the elections held at school.
Marco Antonio Sagastume, former president of CANG, coincides with that vision and points out that this mechanism is historical, and has been used by traditional groups and their candidates to reach lawyers nationwide.
“The CANG is not only for lawyers, it is for citizens. It implies the legal certainty of the country. That is why it is unfortunate that the new authorities have not been assumed,” says the former president of the CANG.
Cang and Usac
In addition to the magistrates of the Constitutional Court (CC) and the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE), which are elected through the Bar Association and Notaries of Guatemala (CANG), there are other equally transcendental positions, according to Carmen Aída Ibarra. One of them is located in the Higher University Council (CSU) of the University of San Carlos de Guatemala (USAC).
In mid -February, the CC ordered Walter Mazariegos and the current CSU to convene elections for 37 of its members, whose period already won. Among those positions is the representative of the CANG and other professional associations.
That call by the CANG is still pending, and when it is carried out, it could affect the majority alliance sustaining mazariegos within the CSU, composed of 41 people, including it.
The CSU is the body responsible for convening the elections of the new rector, and has powers to choose Magistrates of the CC and the TSE. Therefore, the relay of authorities in the CANG is key to Mazariegos and its external allies, among whom has been pointed out to the Attorney General, Consuelo Porras.
“The CANG is a piece throughout the system. For that reason they need to control professional associations in order to influence the elections in the USAC and other positions in the justice system,” says Ibarra.
Other positions and spaces of CANG
- Participation in the Magistrates application commission for the Supreme Court of Justice and Court of Appeals.
- Representation at the National Institute of Forensic Sciences (INACIF).
- Representation at the Institute of Public Criminal Defense.