34. On June 1, 2000, Guatemala’s Congress repealed Decree No. 159 of 1892 with the adoption of Legislative Decree No. 32/00,24 which gave the Executive the power to grant pardon or commutation of sentence and regulated the procedure to make this right effective.25 35. On February 11, 2016, the Constitutional Court of Guatemala declared unconstitutional the second paragraph of article 132 of the Criminal Code, relating to the dangerousness of the accused as a criterion for applying the death penalty, establishing that this precept would cease to have effect from the day following the publication of the ruling in the Diario de Centro América".26 36. Subsequently, in the order of the Inter-American Court of February 6, 2019, on monitoring compliance with judgment in the case of Fermín Ramírez v. Guatemala, the Court, referring to the judgment of the Constitutional Court of February 11, 2016, said that: "It would appear that said judgment of the Constitutional Court declared the unconstitutionality of the only phrase of article 132 of the Criminal Code that established the possibility of applying the death penalty. It is not clear from that judgment whether any possibility of applying the death penalty for the crime of murder in Guatemala has been eliminated, or whether it merely eliminated the possibility of applying it based on the dangerousness of the agent. However, based on the representatives’ assertion that a new legislative bill exists that would again apply the death penalty eliminating the phrase concerning the type of crime […], it would appear that it did eliminate the possibility of applying the death penalty for that crime from the country’s laws. In this regard, in the hypothesis that, according to the laws of Guatemala, it is understood that the death penalty has been annulled for the crime of murder, the Court finds it necessary to recall that Article 4 of the American Convention reflects a “progressive and irreversible process” that “absolutely prohibits the re-establishment of capital punishment for any crime, so that the decision of a State Party to the Convention, whensoever it was adopted, to abolish the death penalty becomes, ipso jure, final and irrevocable.” The Convention “is clearly of a progressive nature; thus, without going so far as to decide on the abolition of the death penalty, it adopts the necessary provisions to definitively limit its application and its scope, so that its use is gradually reduced until it is finally eliminated.” In this way, if the death penalty was eliminated from the law for the crime of murder, it cannot be reinstated for that crime".27 Legislative Decree No. 159 issued by the National Legislative Assembly of the Republic of Guatemala, April 20, 1892. For further development, see Case of Raxcacó Reyes v. Guatemala. Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of September 15, 2005. Series C No. 133, para. 43.17. 26 Judgment of the Constitutional Court of Guatemala of February 11, 2016, Case 1097-2015. The judgment ruled as follows: "This Court considers that the word “dangerousness” contained in the contested phrase as a decisive element for the imposition of a punishment is detrimental to the freedom from ex post facto laws, because only those actions classified as a crime or offense and punished by the law prior to their perpetration are punishable. Given that dangerousness is an endogenous characteristic whose inherent nature prevents determining precisely the protected right that could be harmed, the punishment imposed would be linked to a hypothetical conduct […]. It is even more serious that a psychobiological situation is relevant to impose a punishment of the magnitude of the death penalty, which would merely reflect a significant step backwards in the humanization of the old repressive system, whose rigorous retributive theories saw capital punishment as an absolute solution to the problem of crime […]. The Constitutional Court […] declares: I. Admissible the action of partial general unconstitutionality […] against the penultimate paragraph of article 132 of the Criminal Code, the phrase – “however, the death penalty shall be applied instead of the maximum prison sentence if the circumstances of the act and of the occasion, the way it was carried out and the determinant motives reveal a particular dangerousness of the agent. Those to whom the death penalty is not applied for this crime may not be granted a reduction in the punishment for any reason” – is declared unconstitutional. II. Consequently, it will cease to have effect the day after the publication of this ruling in the Diario de Centro América." 27 Case of Fermín Ramírez v. Guatemala. Monitoring Compliance with Judgment. Order of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of February 6, 2019, para. 13. 24 25 11