Former Guatemalan Attorney General and 2018 Right Livelihood Laureate Thelma Aldana speaks from exile about the challenges the next Public Prosecutor will face in restoring Guatemala’s justice system. “You confront criminality with courage, determination and the law in your hands,” Aldana said.
When Thelma Aldana became Guatemala’s Attorney General in 2014, few could have imagined that the woman appointed by then-president Otto Pérez Molina would later order his arrest on corruption charges. Today, Aldana lives in exile in the United States. Seven years after leaving Guatemala, she continues to watch her country from afar as it prepares for a new Attorney General to take office.
For Aldana, the decision carries enormous weight. “Honesty and independence are what a justice system needs in order to help strengthen democracy,” she says.
During her tenure, from 2014 to 2018, Aldana worked closely with the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) to investigate corruption networks that had long operated untouched inside the country’s institutions. Together, they pursued cases against politicians, business elites and state officials, demonstrating that even the most powerful could be held accountable.
In recognition of this work, Aldana and the head of CICIG, Iván Velásquez, received the 2018 Right Livelihood Award. “Our work reached the white-collar criminals, those whom Guatemala’s justice system had never touched before,” Aldana recalls. “The result of our work was to show that it is possible to fight corruption.”
But the backlash came quickly. “We also learned from Guatemala’s case that the mafia can regroup,” she says. “And when it rises again, it has power, money and everything it needs to strike back.”
Since 2018, Guatemala’s justice system has undergone a profound transformation under outgoing Attorney General Consuelo Porras. Nearly 500 career prosecutors and judicial investigators have reportedly been dismissed, while more than 150 justice officials, journalists and human rights defenders have been forced into exile after facing persecution and threats.
Aldana is one of them. She describes the last eight years as a period in which anti-corruption institutions were systematically eroded. “Consuelo Porras dismantled the institutional capacity of the Public Prosecutor’s Office,” Aldana says. “Instead, she built a criminal structure serving impunity and the Pact of the Corrupt.”
Porras has faced sanctions from the European Union and multiple countries for allegedly undermining democratic institutions and obstructing anti-corruption efforts. In 2023, she was widely criticised for attempts to interfere with Guatemala’s democratic transition following the election of President Bernardo Arévalo.
For Aldana, corruption is not only a political issue — it is deeply connected to inequality and poverty. “Corruption, while a legal problem, is also an obstacle to development because the resources the state should invest in its population are diverted toward private interests, depriving people of basic services,” she says.
“This is why corruption greatly contributes to extreme poverty. Corruption harms democracy, damages the rule of law and prevents people from moving toward development.”
As Guatemala enters a new chapter, Aldana hopes the appointment of a new Attorney General can become an opportunity to rebuild the justice system, restore public trust in institutions and confront the Pact of the Corrupt.
It is a task that requires the same courage, independence and commitment to the rule of law that defined the work of Thelma Aldana and CICIG.
