Título II Capítulo I. Derechos individuales

The State guarantees and protects human life from its conception, as well as the integrity and security of the person.

In Guatemala all human beings are free and equal in dignity and rights. Man and woman, whatever their marital status, have equal opportunities and responsibilities. No person may be subjected to servitude or to any other condition that impairs their dignity. Human beings must observe fraternal conduct toward one another.

Every person has the right to do what the law does not prohibit; they are not obliged to obey orders that are not based in law and issued in conformity therewith. Nor may they be persecuted or harassed for their opinions or for acts that do not involve violation thereof.

No person may be detained or imprisoned, except on grounds of crime or misdemeanor and by virtue of an order issued in accordance with the law by a competent judicial authority. Cases of flagrante delicto for a crime or misdemeanor are excepted. Detainees shall be placed at the disposal of the competent judicial authority within a time limit not exceeding six hours, and may not remain subject to any other authority.

The public official or agent of the authority who infringes the provisions of this article shall be sanctioned in accordance with the law, and the tribunals, on its own initiative, shall initiate the corresponding proceedings.

Every detained person shall be immediately notified, verbally and in writing, of the cause that motivated his or her detention, the authority that ordered it, and the place where he or she will remain. The same notification shall be made by the fastest means to the person whom the detained person designates, and the authority shall be responsible for the effectiveness of the notification.

Every detained person shall be immediately informed of their rights in a manner comprehensible to them, especially that they may obtain defense counsel, who may be present at all police and judicial proceedings. The detained person shall not be compelled to testify except before a competent judicial authority.

The judicial authorities are the only ones competent to interrogate detainees or prisoners. This proceeding shall be carried out within a time limit not exceeding twenty-four hours.

Extrajudicial interrogation lacks evidentiary value.

Persons apprehended by the authority may not be taken to places of detention, arrest or imprisonment other than those legally and publicly designated for that purpose. Detention, arrest, or pretrial detention centers shall be distinct from those in which sentences are to be served.

The authority and its agents who violate the provisions of this article shall be personally liable.

For minor offenses or for violations of regulations, persons whose identity can be established by documentation, by the testimony of a person of established roots, or by the authority itself shall not remain detained.

In such cases, under penalty of the corresponding sanction, the authority shall limit its function to reporting the fact to the competent judge and to warning the offender to appear before the same within the following forty-eight business hours. For that purpose, all days of the year are business days, and the hours between eight and eighteen hours are business hours.

Those who disobey the summons shall be sanctioned in accordance with the law. A person who cannot be identified as provided in this article shall be placed at the disposal of the nearest judicial authority within the first hour following their detention.

The defense of the person and their rights are inviolable. No one may be convicted, nor deprived of their rights, without having been summoned, heard and tried in legal proceedings before a competent and pre-established judge or tribunal.

No person may be tried by Special or secret tribunals, nor by procedures that are not pre-established by law.

No order of imprisonment may be issued without prior information that a crime has been committed and without the concurrence of sufficient rational grounds to believe that the detained person has committed it or participated in it.

The police authorities may not present, on their own initiative, before the means of social communication, any person who has not previously been examined by a competent tribunal.

Every person is innocent while they have not been declared judicially liable by a final and firm judgment.

The detained person, the offended party, the Public Prosecutor's Office and the lawyers designated by the interested parties, verbally or in writing, have the right to personally know all procedural acts, documents and criminal investigative steps, without any reservation and immediately.

The law has no retroactive effect, except in criminal matters when it favors the defendant.

In criminal proceedings, no person may be compelled to testify against himself or herself, against his or her spouse or legally recognized de facto partner, nor against his or her relatives within the degrees prescribed by law.

Actions or omissions that are not classified as a crime or misdemeanor and punished by a law prior to their perpetration are not punishable.

There is no imprisonment for debt.

The death penalty may not be imposed in the following cases:

a)On the basis of presumptions;

b)On women;

c)On persons over sixty years of age;

d)On persons convicted of political crimes and ordinary crimes connected with political crimes; and

e)On persons whose extradition has been granted under that condition.

Against the judgment imposing the death penalty, all pertinent legal remedies shall be admissible, including cassation; the latter shall always be admitted for processing. The penalty shall be executed after all remedies have been exhausted.

The Congress of the Republic may abolish the death penalty.

The penitentiary system must tend toward the social readaptation and reeducation of inmates and observe, in the treatment thereof, the following minimum standards:

a)They must be treated as human beings; they must not be discriminated against on any ground, nor may cruel treatment, physical, moral, psychological torture, coercion or annoyance, work incompatible with their physical condition, actions degrading to their dignity, or making them victims of exactions be inflicted on them, nor be subjected to scientific experiments;

b)They must serve the penalties in the places designated for that purpose. Penal centers are of a civil nature and with specialized personnel; and

c)They have the right to communicate, when they so request, with their family members, defense counsel, religious assistant or physician, and, where applicable, with the diplomatic or consular representative of their nationality.

The violation of any of the standards established in this article gives the detainee the right to claim from the State compensation for the damage caused and the Supreme Court of Justice shall order their immediate protection.

The State shall create and foster the conditions for exact compliance with what is prescribed in this article.

Minors who transgress the law are not imputable. Their treatment shall be oriented toward a comprehensive education appropriate for children and youth.

Minors whose conduct violates criminal law shall be attended to by specialized institutions and personnel. Under no circumstances may they be confined in penal or detention centers intended for adults. A specific law shall regulate this matter.

Public officials, public employees or other persons who give or execute orders contrary to the provisions of the two preceding articles, in addition to the sanctions imposed on them by law, shall be immediately removed from their office, where applicable, and disqualified from holding any public office or public employment.

The custodian who makes improper use of means or weapons against a detainee or prisoner shall be liable under Criminal Law. The crime committed in such circumstances is imprescriptible.

Criminal and police records are not grounds for restricting persons in the exercise of their rights guaranteed to them by this Constitution and the laws of the Republic, except when limited by law, or in a final judgment, and for the time limit fixed therein.

The dwelling is inviolable. No one may enter another's dwelling without permission of the person who inhabits it, except by written order of a competent judge in which the reason for the proceeding is specified and never before six nor after eighteen hours. Such proceeding shall always be carried out in the presence of the interested party, or his agent.

The correspondence of every person, their documents and books are inviolable. They may only be reviewed or seized pursuant to a final decision issued by a competent judge and with the legal formalities. The secrecy of correspondence and of telephone, radio, cable communications and other products of modern technology is guaranteed.

Books, documents and files relating to the payment of taxes, fees, municipal levies and contributions may be reviewed by the competent authority in accordance with the law. It is punishable to reveal the amount of taxes paid, profits, losses, costs and any other data referring to the reviewed accounting records to individual or juridical persons, with the exception of general balance sheets whose publication is ordered by law.

Documents or information obtained in violation of this article shall not be given credence nor constitute evidence at trial.

The search of persons and vehicles may only be conducted by members of the security forces when justified cause therefor is established. For that purpose, the members of the security forces must present themselves duly uniformed and be of the same sex as those searched, and respect for the dignity, privacy and decorum of persons shall be maintained.

Every person has liberty to enter, remain, transit and leave the national territory and to change domicile or residence, with no limitations other than those established by law.

No Guatemalan may be expatriated, nor be prohibited entry to the national territory or be denied a passport or other identification documents.

Guatemalans may enter and leave the country without fulfilling the visa requirement.

The law shall determine the liabilities incurred by those who infringe this provision.

Guatemala recognizes the right of asylum and grants it in accordance with international practices.

Extradition is governed by the provisions of international treaties.

For political crimes, extradition of Guatemalans shall not be sought, who in no case shall be delivered to a foreign government, except as provided in treaties and conventions with respect to crimes against humanity or against international law.

The expulsion from the national territory of a political refugee, to the country that persecutes him, shall not be ordered.

The inhabitants of the Republic of Guatemala have the right to address, individually or collectively, petitions to the authority, which is obligated to process them and must resolve them in accordance with the law.

In administrative matters, the term to resolve the petitions and notify the decisions may not exceed thirty days.

In fiscal matters, to challenge administrative decisions in proceedings originating from assessments or adjustments for any tax, prior payment of the tax or any guarantee shall not be required of the taxpayer.

Every person has free access to the tribunals, agencies and offices of the State, to exercise their actions and assert their rights in accordance with the law.

Foreigners may resort to diplomatic recourse only in case of denial of justice.

The mere fact that the judgment is contrary to their interests shall not be deemed as such, and in any case, the legal remedies established by Guatemalan laws must have been exhausted.

All acts of the administration are public. Interested parties have the right to obtain, at any time, reports, copies, reproductions and certifications they request and the exhibition of the files they wish to consult, except where military or diplomatic matters of national security are involved, or data supplied by private individuals under guarantee of confidentiality.

Every person has the right to know what concerning such person is contained in archives, index cards or any other form of State records, and the purpose to which this information is devoted, as well as to correction, rectification and updating. Records and archives of political affiliation are prohibited, except those of the electoral authorities and of political parties.

Appearance before an authority, public official or public employee is not mandatory if the corresponding summonses do not expressly state the purpose of the proceeding.

The right of peaceful and unarmed assembly is recognized.

The rights of assembly and public demonstration may not be restricted, diminished or curtailed; and the law shall regulate them with the sole purpose of guaranteeing public order.

Religious demonstrations outside temples are permitted and are governed by law.

For the exercise of these rights, prior notification by the organizers to the competent authority shall suffice.

The right to free association is recognized.

No one is obligated to associate or to form part of self-defense or similar groups or associations. The case of compulsory professional association membership is excepted.

Emission of thought by any means of dissemination is free, without censorship or prior license. This constitutional right shall not be restricted by any law or governmental provision. Whoever, in exercise of this liberty, fails to respect private life or morals, shall be liable pursuant to the law. Those who deem themselves offended have the right to the publication of their defenses, clarifications and rectifications.

Publications containing denunciations, criticisms or imputations against public officials or public employees for acts performed in the exercise of their offices do not constitute a crime or misdemeanor.

Public officials and public employees may demand that a tribunal of honor, integrated in the manner determined by law, declare that the publication affecting them is based on inaccurate facts or that the charges made against them are unfounded. The ruling vindicating the offended party shall be published in the same social communications medium where the imputation appeared.

The activity of the social communications media is of public interest and they shall in no case be expropriated. For misdemeanors or crimes in the emission of thought, the enterprises, workshops, equipment, machinery and implements of the social communications media may not be closed, seized, intervened, confiscated or forfeited, nor interrupted in their operation.

Access to sources of information is free and no authority may limit that right.

The authorization, limitation or cancellation of concessions granted by the State to persons may not be used as elements of pressure or coercion to limit the exercise of free emission of thought.

A jury shall have exclusive jurisdiction over the crimes or misdemeanors referred to in this article.

All matters relating to this constitutional right are regulated in the Constitutional Law on Emission of Thought.

Owners of social communications media shall provide socioeconomic coverage to their reporters, through the contracting of life insurance.

The exercise of all religions is free. Every person has the right to practice their religion or belief, both in public and in private, through teaching, worship and observance, with no limits other than public order and the respect due to the dignity of the hierarchy and to the faithful of other creeds.

The juridical personality of the Catholic Church is recognized. The other churches, cults, entities and associations of a religious character shall obtain recognition of their juridical personality in accordance with the rules of their institution, and the Government may not deny it except for reasons of public order.

The State shall issue to the Catholic Church, at no cost, titles of ownership to the immovable property that it currently and peacefully possesses for its own purposes, provided that they formed part of the patrimony of the Catholic Church in the past. Property registered in favor of third persons, nor that which the State has traditionally destined for its services, may not be affected.

The immovable property of religious entities destined for worship, education and social assistance enjoys exemption from taxes, municipal levies and contributions.

The right to possess arms for personal use, not prohibited by law, in the place of residence is recognized. There shall be no obligation to surrender them, except in cases ordered by a competent judge.

The right to carry arms, regulated by law, is recognized.

Private property is guaranteed as a right inherent to the human person. Every person may freely dispose of their property in accordance with the law.

The State guarantees the exercise of this right and shall create the conditions that facilitate the owner's use and enjoyment of their property, so that individual progress and national development are achieved for the benefit of all Guatemalans.

In specific cases, private property may be expropriated for reasons of collective utility, social benefit or public interest duly proven. The expropriation shall be subject to the procedures prescribed by law, and the affected property shall be appraised by experts taking its current value as a basis.

Compensation shall be prior and in effective currency of legal tender, unless another form of compensation is agreed with the interested party.

Only in case of war, public calamity or serious disturbance of the peace may property be occupied or intervened, or expropriated without prior compensation, but such compensation shall be made immediately after the emergency has ceased. The law shall establish the rules to be followed with respect to enemy property.

The form of payment of compensation for expropriation of idle lands shall be fixed by law. In no case may the period for making said payment effective exceed ten years.

On account of political activity or crime, the right to property may not be limited in any manner. The confiscation of property and the imposition of confiscatory fines are prohibited. Fines may in no case exceed the value of the tax omitted.

The copyright and the inventor's right are recognized; the holders thereof shall enjoy the exclusive ownership of their work or invention, in accordance with the law and international treaties.

The liberty of industry, commerce and work is recognized, except for the limitations that the laws impose for social reasons or for reasons of national interest.

The rights and guarantees granted by the Constitution do not exclude others which, although not expressly set forth therein, are inherent to the human person.

The social interest prevails over the particular interest.

Laws and governmental provisions or provisions of any other order that diminish, restrict or distort the rights guaranteed by the Constitution shall be null ipso jure.

The action to prosecute violators of human rights is public and may be exercised by means of a simple complaint, without security or any formality whatsoever. Resistance by the people for the protection and defense of the rights and guarantees set forth in the Constitution is legitimate.

The general principle is established that in matters of human rights, treaties and conventions accepted and ratified by Guatemala have preeminence over domestic law.