stipulates that torture shall be understood to be: [A]ny act intentionally performed whereby physical or mental pain or suffering is inflicted on a person for purposes of criminal investigation, as a means of intimidation, as personal punishment, as a preventive measure, as a penalty, or for any other purpose. Torture shall also be understood to be the use of methods upon a person intended to obliterate the personality of the victim or to diminish his physical or mental capacities, even if they do not cause physical pain or mental anguish. 223. This failure to adapt the law has also been stressed by the Constitutional Court of Guatemala in a judgment of July 17, 2012, in which it expressly indicated: […] the definition of the crime of torture contained in article 201 bis of the Criminal Code does not include all the elements described in the international treaties that regulate that unlawful conduct, because it omits: punishment, discrimination and any other purpose as part of the definition of the crime, as well as the application of methods intended to obliterate the personality of the victim or to dimmish his physical or mental capacities, even if they do not cause physical pain or mental anguish. Therefore, by excluding those objective elements from protection accorded to the right in question, there has been a failure to define as a crime acts that are extremely harmful to the moral and physical integrity of the individual, and that are necessary to supplement the crime established in article 201 of the Criminal Code, thus contravening Article 1 of the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture. […] This court considers that, in order to comply with the necessary definition of the crime, and in application of the international human rights standards, the description of the conducts that constitute “torture” must be established specifically, so that it is necessary to introduce, by means of an amendment of the criminal norm contained in article 201 bis of the Criminal Code the phrases: “punishment,” “any type of discrimination,” “or any other purpose,” as purposes of the crime of torture, and it should be expressly regulated that this crime is also constituted by “the use of methods upon a person intended to obliterate the personality of the victim or to diminish his physical or mental capacities, even if they do not cause physical pain or mental anguish.”247 224. The Constitutional Court concluded, therefore, that article 201 bis of the Criminal Code should be amended by “legislative action with the additions found in the provisions of the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and in the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture.”248 Based on the arguments presented by the State and the body of evidence in this case, the Court notes that, at the date of this judgment, this legislative adaptation and amendment have not taken place. 225. Consequently, the Court finds it pertinent to order the State, as a guarantee of non-repetition of the facts of this case, to adapt the definition of the crime of torture contained in article 201 bis of the current Criminal Code to international human rights standards within a reasonable time. 226. Regarding the request concerning the prohibition to adopt retrogressive legislation in relation to the death penalty, in section VIII-1 of this judgment, the Court referred to the very restrictive regime for the death penalty established in Article 4 of the American Convention and the abolitionist tendency reflected in the Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty, which also prevails in the universal system, and therefore refers back to its previous considerations. In addition, the Court underscores the ruling of the Constitutional Court of Guatemala in its judgment of October 24, 2017, declaring that the said article 201 was unconstitutional because it considered that it constituted an evident violation of Article 4(2) of the American Convention on Human Rights.249 Cf. Judgment of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Guatemala of July 17, 2012, file 1822-2011 (evidence file, folios 6855 and 6856). 248 Cf. Judgment of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Guatemala of July 17, 2012, file 1822-2011 (evidence file, folio 6858). 249 Cf. Judgment of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Guatemala, of October 24, 2018, File 5986-2016. 247 50