Miguel Angel Sandoval
There are two expressions that could summarize what the bar association in this country is experiencing today. One says, “between lawyers you see yourself” and the other, “made the law, made the trap.” In short, it is about the way in which the ordinary citizen refers to that profession. Rightly or wrongly, but with some truth. I clarify that there are notable exceptions.
The phrase that says, between lawyers you see yourself, refers, or at least that’s how I understand it, to the fact that, on any subject, between lawyers, it gives rise to discussions full of legal citations, articles, etc. But generally there is no opinion of the person who expresses them, since everything refers or refers to what we call the duty to be. And the other, this one very strong, tells us that, in the lawyers’ union, when a law is drawn up and published, at the moment it is known, there is already among the initiates, the way to counteract the effect of the newborn law.
It is undoubtedly something complicated, which has to do with a concept that is increasingly rare among lawyers: ethics. If we ask among a group of lawyers, as a test, what texts on ethics they have read in the exercise of their profession, we will realize that very few, few lawyers and texts. But even so, the scandalous autism of that school is not explained. If the issue were the elective positions for a magistracy, or for any representation, the waters of that guild would be troubled, but since it is a national issue, it is worth twenty.
I point out these issues, knowing that it can be counterproductive, or that it can give rise to discussions that rise in tone, but in the face of the current crisis, in that semi-legal or pseudo-legal ping pong between the CC, the CSJ, the TSE and the MP, and other actors, the main absentee is the collegiate body that should settle the discussion and say, this is it. But it turns out that the Guatemalan Bar Association and Notaries is absolutely silent. I don’t know if it’s complicity or ignorance. Or because the justice institutions care very little for them. Maybe if they explained their reasons…. I leave it there.
