Roberto Molina Barreto

Last updated
Roberto Molina Barreto
Retrato oficial de Magistrado Roberto Molina Barreto (VIII Magistratura) (cropped).jpg
Official portrait, 2021
Personal details
Born
Roberto Molina Barreto

(1955-11-08) 8 November 1955 (age 68)
Guatemala City, Guatemala
Political party Valor (since 2018)
SpouseNora Patricia Spillari Umaña (m. 1975)

Roberto Molina Barreto (born November 8, 1955) is a Guatemalan attorney and politician, who served as Attorney General of the Nation from 2005 to 2006, magistrate of the Constitutional Court from 2006 to 2016 and from 2020 and President of the Constitutional Court on three occasions. [1] [2]

Contents

On December 2, 2018, he was proclaimed candidate for vice president by Valor along with Zury Ríos –daughter of Efraín Ríos Montt– as candidate for president. [3]

Biography

He graduated in 1984 from the University of San Carlos of Guatemala where he obtained the titles of Law and Social Sciences, Lawyer and Notary Public. He began his career, in 1974, in the Judicial Branch where he served as an assistant officer in the courts until 1980, from that year he founded his own law firm "Molina Barreto & Asociados" in which he worked for several years in the private sphere. [4] [5]

Attorney General of the Nation

On March 18, 2005, Óscar Berger, president of Guatemala at the time, appointed him as Attorney General of the Nation -PGN in spanish-, after having dismissed Luis Alfonso Rosales, who had been appointed in 2002 by Alfonso Portillo. [6] Before that appointment, Molina Barreto worked and was a founding associate at the Center for the Defense of the Constitution -CEDECON in spanish-, a non-governmental organization in charge of litigating cases of constitutional rank before the Constitutional Court of Guatemala, it was there where he acquired knowledge constitutional law practitioner and belonging to said association was a determining factor for Berger to decide to appoint him as attorney general. [6]

As a lawyer and constitutionalist, Molina participated in studies, analyzes and opinions that were carried out for initiatives to reform the Electoral Law and the Law of Amparo, Habeas Corpus and Constitutionality, both two very important laws in Guatemala. In his position as Attorney General of the Nation, he was a representative of Guatemala and advised on the implementation of the issue of adoptions in the Hague Intercountry Adoption Convention. He also presented a bill to approve an organic law of the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation and promoted legislation for adoption of minors in Guatemala and the development of the matter in the PGN. [5]

The following year, in March 2006, Berger appointed him as a magistrate of the Constitutional Court for the period that began that year and ended in 2011, for which Molina Barreto resigned from the position of attorney general to be able to take office on the court in April of that year. [5] [7]

Constitutional magistrate

From April 14, 2006, to the same date in 2011, he was a magistrate of the constitutional court, and he additionally was president in 2010 to 2011. During that period, he founded the Institute of Constitutional Justice, which is attached to the Constitutional Court. [4]

In 2011 he was again appointed as a magistrate of the Constitutional Court, but this time it was by the Supreme Court of Justice, during this period he signed in favor of a resolution that annulled the sentence made to Efraín Ríos Montt for alleged crimes of lesa humanity, arguing that the "First High Risk Court A" had not resolved a challenge filed against two members of that judiciary by the defendant's defense attorney, committing a procedural error; this resolution was signed by Héctor Pérez Aguilera and Alejandro Maldonado Aguirre supporting this criterion. [2] [3]

He was president of the court, again, between 2014 and 2015 and during the political crisis in Guatemala in 2015, in the framework of the discovery of several cases of corruption, including the La Línea case, it was controversial when, in June, he voted in favor to stop a process to withdraw Otto Pérez Molina's immunity due to an appeal filed by some opposition deputies but that had nothing to do with the case and had not been requested by the Public Ministry. His period in the Constitucional Court finished in april, 2016.

On November 10, 2020, he was appointed, by the Supreme Court of Justice, again as a Magistrate of the Constitutional Court to fill the vacant position left by Neftaly Aldana Herrera, who resigned as a magistrate on October 21 of that year because of a disease that he had, in the period ending April 14, 2021. [8]

On March 10, 2021, he was confirmed in office to serve in the VIII magistracy that will end in 2026, he was also its president between April 2021 and April 2022. [4]

Political career

On December 2, 2018, he was proclaimed a candidate for vice president of Guatemala by the Valor political party together with Zury Ríos, daughter of Efraín Ríos Montt, as a candidate for the presidency. [2] [3] but he could not participate in the elections because the Constitutional Court annulled the registration of both due to an alleged constitutional prohibition of his running mate, of which he assured that it did not apply to her and pointed to Gloria Porras as responsible for having led the opinion of the other 3 magistrates who voted in favor of the resolution. They didn't participate in that elections. [9]

Related Research Articles

Politics of Guatemala takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, where by the President of Guatemala is both head of state, head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Congress of the Republic. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. Guatemala is a Constitutional Republic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Efraín Ríos Montt</span> 38th President of Guatemala from 1982 to 1983

José Efraín Ríos Montt was a Guatemalan military officer, politician, and dictator who served as de facto President of Guatemala from 1982 to 1983. His brief tenure as chief executive was one of the bloodiest periods in the long-running Guatemalan Civil War. Ríos Montt's counter-insurgency strategies significantly weakened the Marxist guerrillas organized under the umbrella of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) while also leading to accusations of war crimes and genocide perpetrated by the Guatemalan Army under his leadership.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alfonso Portillo</span> President of Guatemala from 2000 to 2004

Alfonso Antonio Portillo Cabrera is a Guatemalan politician who served as President of Guatemala from 2000 to 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Institutional Republican Party</span> Political party in Guatemala

The Institutional Republican Party, until 2013 known as the Guatemalan Republican Front, was a right-wing to far-right political party in Guatemala.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zury Ríos</span> Guatemalan politician

Zury Mayté Ríos Sosa is a Guatemalan politician. She is the daughter of the late general, and President of Guatemala Efraín Ríos Montt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jorge Mario García Laguardia</span> Guatemalan jurist (1931–2021)

Jorge Mario García Laguardia was a Guatemalan jurist.

Jueves negro was a violent series of political demonstrations that created havoc in Guatemala City on 24 and 25 July 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Otto Pérez Molina</span> President of Guatemala from 2012 to 2015

Otto Fernando Pérez Molina is a Guatemalan politician and retired general who served as the President of Guatemala from 2012 to 2015. Standing as the Patriotic Party candidate, he lost the 2007 presidential election but prevailed in the 2011 presidential election. During the 1990s, before entering politics, he served as Director of Military Intelligence, Presidential Chief of Staff under President Ramiro de León Carpio, and as the chief representative of the military for the Guatemalan Peace Accords. On being elected President, he called for the legalization of drugs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iris Yassmin Barrios Aguilar</span>

Iris Yassmin Barrios Aguilar is a judge and the president of one of Guatemala’s two High Risk Court Tribunals. She was the presiding judge in the case of Efraín Ríos Montt, a former dictator of Guatemala. In that trial Montt was found guilty of the genocide of indigenous Ixil Mayans; the verdict came in 2013. The trial was the first time a national judiciary tried a former head of state for genocide in his home country. However, on May 20, 2013, the Constitutional Court of Guatemala overturned the conviction, voiding all proceedings back to April 19 and ordering that the trial be "reset" to that point, pending a dispute over the recusal of judges. Officials have said that Ríos Montt's trial will resume in January 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alejandro Maldonado</span> Guatemalan statesman

Alejandro Baltazar Maldonado Aguirre is a Guatemalan statesman who served as the acting President of Guatemala following the Congress' acceptance of the resignation of President Otto Pérez Molina on September 3, 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vision with Values</span> Political party in Guatemala

Vision with Values is a political party in Guatemala.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Constitutional Court of Guatemala</span>

The Constitutional Court of Guatemala is the highest court for constitutional law in the Republic of Guatemala. It is tasked with preserving the constitutional order by ruling on questions of the constitutionality of laws or state actions. The Court is normally composed of five titular or primary magistrates who serve five year terms. Each titular magistrate is appointed with a substitute. In special cases two substitutes are added to the bench for a total of seven to hear that case. Each titular member serves for one year as the president of the court.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2019 Guatemalan general election</span>

General elections were held in Guatemala on 16 June 2019, to elect the president, Congress and local councils. A second round of the presidential elections was held on 11 August 2019, since no candidate won a majority in the first round. Alejandro Giammattei won the election in the second round of voting.

The order of precedence in Guatemala is a symbolic hierarchy of officials used to direct protocol. It is regulated by Presidential Decree 07-2003 of March 11, 2003. signed by then President Alfonso Portillo, President of the Congress Efraín Ríos Montt and Former Interior Minister José Adolfo Reyes Calderón.

María Teresa Sosa Ávila was a Guatemalan politician. She was the widow of President of Guatemala Efraín Ríos Montt and mother of Zury Ríos. She was the nominee for the Guatemalan Republican Front for the presidency in the election of 1995. However, the Citizen Registry annulled her candidacy because she could not be elected to the position under the express prohibition contained in Article 186, Subsection C of the Constitution. She was succeeded as her party's nominee by Alfonso Portillo, who subsequently won the 1999 election.

Human rights is an issue in Guatemala. The establishment of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala has helped the Attorney General prosecute extrajudicial killings and corruption. There remains widespread impunity for abusers from the Guatemalan Civil War, which ran from 1960 to 1996, and Human Rights Watch considers threats and violence against unionists, journalists and lawyers a major concern.

The following lists events in the year 2018 in Guatemala.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julián Sánchez Melgar</span> Spanish judge and prosecutor

Julián Artemio Sánchez Melgar, is a Spanish judge and prosecutor currently serving as magistrate of the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court. He was the 90th Attorney General of Spain from December 2017 to June 2018. Because of being attorney general he was also member of the Council of State. He is considered a Magistrate with a conservative profile.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2023 Guatemalan general election</span>

General elections were held in Guatemala on 25 June 2023 to elect the president and vice president, all 160 seats in Congress, all 20 members of the Central American Parliament, and mayors and councils for all the country's 340 municipalities. Incumbent president Alejandro Giammattei was constitutionally prohibited from running for a second four-year term. However, as no presidential candidate obtained over 50 percent of the vote in the first round on 25 June 2023, a second round was held between the top two finishers on 20 August 2023: Congressman Bernardo Arévalo of the Movimiento Semilla and Sandra Torres, a former first lady representing the National Unity of Hope (UNE) party. Arévalo defeated Torres in the second round with nearly 61 percent of the vote in what was seen as a landslide. The ruling Vamos party won the largest number of seats in Congress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silvia Valdés</span> Guatemalan Supreme Court judge

Silvia Patricia Valdés Quezada is a lawyer who served as the third female president of the Supreme Court of Justice and the judicial branch of Guatemala, from 2019 until 2023.

References

  1. ↑ "Roberto Molina Barreto desacredita a la CC que él mismo presidió". Nómada (in Spanish). Retrieved 12 October 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 "El perfil del vice de Zury Ríos, el juez que protegió a su papá y a OPM". Nómada (in Spanish). Retrieved 14 March 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 "Zury Ríos y Roberto Molina Barreto son proclamados candidatos a la presidencia". Prensa Libre (in Spanish). Retrieved 2 December 2018.
  4. 1 2 3 Sánchez, Jimena (2021-03-10). "Roberto Molina Barreto es designado como magistrado titular ante la CC". Centra News (in Spanish). Retrieved 2023-05-30.
  5. 1 2 3 Gonzalez, Luis. "¿Quién es Roberto Molina Barreto el nuevo magistrado titular de la CC?". República.gt (in Spanish). Retrieved 2023-05-30.
  6. 1 2 "Presidente guatemalteco destituye a procurador general". Laredo Morning Times. 2005-03-19. Retrieved 2023-05-30.
  7. ↑ "CSJ reelige a Roberto Molina Barreto como magistrado de la CC". www.soy502.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 2023-05-30.
  8. ↑ "Roberto Molina Barreto es elegido magistrado titular de la CC por la CSJ" (in Spanish). 2020-11-10. Retrieved 2023-05-30.
  9. ↑ La Hora (May 13, 2019). "Tweet". Twitter. Retrieved 2023-05-30.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.