Social Vulnerability of Guatemalan Courts : An Expanded Conceptualization of Judicial Independence

The growing literature on comparative judicial politics focuses primarily on intragovernmental, interbranch relations. In this paper, I argue for the expansion of this scholarship to include the issue of judicial autonomy from both official and non-official actors. Parsing the difference between judicial independence from other branches of government and individual judicial autonomy from interference from a variety of both official and social actors allows for a clearer understanding of the way that the judiciary operates in weak democracies. This paper suggests a typology of judicial regime types, including liberal, impunity, parliamentary supremacy, and governmental control regime types. Judicial autonomy is argued to be of utmost importance for a democratic rule of law. Special focus is placed on the impunity regime as producing a particular pathology of weak democracy. The case of Guatemala is discussed as an example of an impunity judicial regime in which the autonomy of judges is compromised by widespread crime and where the consequence – impunity for most violent criminals – is dire