Comptroller selection process faces challenge seeking to reset candidate scoring table

Guatemalan accountant and auditor Hugo Locón Suruy has asked a court to halt recent progress in the selection of candidates for the country’s Comptroller General’s Office and require the process to reconsider its scoring table.

The challenge, filed by lawyer Nidia Betzabé Ichich, targets the sixth and eighth points of the selection commission’s Act 003-2026. Those provisions approved interview guidelines and a scoring system for evaluating candidates’ professional experience, academic background and social record.

The interviews will not receive a score and will be conducted only for applicants who pass the cutoff line, Locón says. In his view, that arrangement gives each commissioner room for subjective judgment when casting a vote.

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The constitutional rule sets, regarding professional practice, a minimum period for eligibility. It does not say, and cannot be interpreted to say, that whoever has more years of practice is constitutionally more suitable, or that suitability is measured by seniority.

He also objects to the system’s treatment of professional experience. The table awards points for years of practice beyond the 10-year minimum required for eligibility. “The constitutional rule sets, regarding professional practice, a minimum period for eligibility. It does not say, and cannot be interpreted to say, that whoever has more years of practice is constitutionally more suitable, or that suitability is measured by seniority,” Locón argues.

He says the constitutional requirement treats 10 years of professional practice as sufficient evidence of the maturity expected from the head of the country’s supreme audit body. Giving additional weight to seniority, he contends, places candidates who meet that requirement at a “structural and insurmountable disadvantage” and conflicts with several constitutional provisions.

If the First Chamber of the Administrative Litigation Tribunal grants the challenge, the selection commission would have to reconsider the scoring table. The issue already produced hours of debate among commissioners. Commission president Miquel Cortés said the discussion arose because some members sought to create an instrument favoring a particular candidate rather than define a profile suited to the office.

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structural and insurmountable disadvantage