Libro III · Título II Capítulo I. Disposiciones generales

Adolescents in conflict with criminal law shall be understood to mean he or she whose conduct violates criminal law.

All persons who are between thirteen and less than eighteen years of age at the time of committing an act in conflict with criminal law or special laws shall be subjects of this Law.

The provisions of this title shall apply to all adolescents who are in conflict with criminal law, as well as to those who reach the age of majority in the course of the proceedings.

It shall likewise apply when adolescents are charged after having reached the age of majority; provided that the act occurred within the ages covered for application of this Law to them.

the basic procedural guarantees for tutelary adjudication. punishable in the territory of the Republic. The principle of extraterritoriality shall apply according to the rules established in the Criminal Code.

For its application, this Law shall differentiate, as to the proceedings, the measures and their execution, between two groups, from thirteen to fifteen years of age, and from fifteen years of age until eighteen years of age have been reached.

In cases in which the age of a person, presumably under eighteen years of age, cannot be proven by any means, such person shall be considered as such and shall be subject to the provisions of this Law.

Acts committed by a minor under thirteen years of age, which constitute a crime or misdemeanor, shall not be subject to this Title; civil liability shall be reserved and shall be exercised before the competent jurisdictional tribunals. Such boys and girls shall be subject to such medical, psychological and pedagogical attention as may be necessary under the care and custody of their parents or persons in charge and shall be attended to by the Trial Courts for Childhood and Adolescence.

The guiding principles of the present proceedings shall be the integral protection of the adolescent, his or her best interests, respect for his or her rights, his or her integral formation and reintegration into his or her family and society. The State, Non-Governmental Organizations, the respective Municipal Commission for Children and Adolescence, and the communities shall jointly promote both the programs aimed at those ends and the protection of the rights and interests of the victims of the act.

This Title shall be interpreted and applied in harmony with its guiding principles, with the provisions of the Political Constitution of the Republic, the conventions, treaties, pacts and other international instruments in matters of human rights accepted and ratified by Guatemala and the Law of the Judicial Branch.

Any matter not expressly regulated in this Law shall be governed on a suppletory basis by Criminal Legislation and the Code of Criminal Procedure, insofar as they do not contradict express provisions of this Law.