Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA

COLOM VETOES THE DEATH PENALTY

March 14, 2008

After several days of meetings with diplomats, religious leaders, presidents from other countries, and a twenty-two member legal team, President Álvaro Colom announced his decision to veto the Presidential Pardon Law (Decree 06-2008) for those awaiting the death penalty. Asserting that the Law violated articles of the Constitution and went against the principle of the right to life, Colom rejected reinstating capital punishment. The death penalty has not been applied in Guatemala for several years because it was caught in a legal vacuum concerning clemency protocols. However, Decree 06-2008, approved by Congress in mid February, clarified questions around the use of presidential pardons for individuals on death row and subsequently, opened the door for the death penalty once again.

Otto Pérez Molina, former presidential candidate and leader of the Patriot Party, criticized Colom’s decision. He stated that the president was once again being inconsistent with his platform and policies. Pérez Molina introduced Decree 06-2008 in Congress and lobbied for its passage.

During the two week period leading up to Colom’s decision, both Congress and Colom were the object of heavy criticism and pressure from several sectors, both national and internationally. Church leaders insisted that the death penalty would be immoral and create a “culture of death,” and would not resolve the root causes of crime in Guatemala, which stem from poverty, the drug trade, and organized crime. The European Union pressured Colom by suggesting that Guatemala would potentially lose trade partners if capital punishment were to be reinstated.

Several human rights organizations, including the Center for Legal Action on Human Rights (CALDH), the International Human Rights Federation, the Mutual Support Group (GAM), the Institute of Comparative Studies in Penal Sciences (IECCP), and the Human Rights Office of the Archdiocese of Guatemala (ODHAG) issued a press release stating that “the application of the death penalty will not resolve the security or delinquency issues in Guatemala; on the contrary, in Guatemala and other countries, this kind of extreme measure is ineffective.”

Pressure on Colom came from international citizens as well. The Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA (GHRC) mobilized its base of international grassroots activists to send hundreds of letters to President Colom encouraging him to veto the legislation because capital punishment violates the right to life and never serves as a deterrent to crime.

[Source: Guatemala Human Rights UPDATE, Vol 20 No 5. Click here to subscribe.]

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