“Judge Aurora Gutiérrez, of the Fifth Criminal Court [of Guatemala], ruled that the case being pursued against six journalists and two columnists from the defunct newspaper elPeriódico cannot continue to be resolved through criminal proceedings and now a Printing Court must hear the case, as stipulated in the Constitution of the Republic.
The defense of the journalists presented, this Monday, Jan. 8, before the Fifth Court an incident of jurisdiction through which it indicated that the Special Prosecutor's Office Against Impunity (FECI, for its acronym in Spanish) violated constitutional guarantees by using criminal law to resolve disagreements over publications from that media outlet."
