Criminal
Adversarial procedure with a strong private-prosecution role
The 1992 Código Procesal Penal introduced oral adversarial trial. The Ministerio Público prosecutes, but victims may join as querellante adhesivo and drive a case forward, a mechanism that produced Guatemala's landmark grave-crimes and corruption prosecutions.
Key rules
- Detention must be reviewed by a judge within 24 hours, and pre-trial detention is exceptional in law though common in practice.
- Victims may act as querellante adhesivo alongside the prosecutor, or bring a private action for certain offences.
- High-risk courts (tribunales de mayor riesgo) hear organised crime, corruption and grave human-rights cases.
- Alternatives to trial include criterio de oportunidad, suspensión condicional and procedimiento abreviado.
- Genocide and crimes against humanity are not subject to amnesty, as the Constitutional Court confirmed in the Ríos Montt line of cases.
Governing law
- Código Penal (Decreto 17-73)Substantive offences.
- Código Procesal Penal (Decreto 51-92)Adversarial criminal procedure.
- Ley contra la Delincuencia Organizada (Decreto 21-2006)Special investigative techniques.
In practice
Case backlogs and the use of amparo as a delay device are the defining features of practice. Since CICIG's mandate ended in 2019 a number of judges and prosecutors handling corruption cases have left the country, and defence strategies increasingly turn on jurisdictional challenges.