The commission calls on the laborers involved to return to work and make no claims for outstanding wages or benefits. For its part, management is asked to rehire the workers whose dismissals gave rise to the disputes. Both parties should desist from any legal actions taken and take no further measures of this kind, the proposal states. The conflicts in Izabal province erupted last February after the farms' administrators tried to break the trade unions forming there. A law to establish a new Public Defense Institute took effect today with the aim of providing qualified defense counsel free of charge to Guatemalans who cannot afford to hire their own attorneys.
Society is just as interested in the aquittal of the innocent as the punishment of the guilty.
Although a Public Defense Service, established in 1992, already exists it is run and financed by the Supreme Court. The new institute will receive its budget directly from Congress, and will be overseen by a board made up of the Supreme Court President, the Human Rights Ombudsman, a representative of the bar association, a delegate for the deans of law of the country's universities, and an elected representative of the lawyers on staff. The institute will also significantly increase the number of public defense lawyers available to Guatemalans in trouble with the law. Currently 66 lawyers provide this service for the entire country. The service's director Jorge Armando Valvert estimates that at least 200 are needed.