Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2025, published 114th ILC session (2026)

Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87) - Guatemala (Ratification: 1952)

Sections 256, 292, 294 and 414 of the Penal Code. The Committee recalls that, on the basis of the allegations made by the Guatemalan Trade Union, Indigenous and Rural Movement (MSICG), asserting that sections 256, 292, 294 and 414 of the Penal Code facilitated the criminalization of peaceful labour protest through an excessively broad and subjective characterization of common offences (such as the occupation (“usurpation”) of buildings, the paralysation of means of transport, and disobedience), it once again requested the Government to provide specific information on any type of case in which any of the sections of the Penal Code referred to above have been applied in the case of labour protests in practice. The Committee notes that the Government has once again limited its reply to the offence of disobedience defined in section 414 of the Penal Code with the indication that the investigation of situations of disobedience in labour matters is vested with the Judicial Panel on Criminal Peace and that, since it was established (in February 2023) up to May 2025, the Panel has examined 799 cases, none of which are related to labour protests. The Committee also notes the Government’s indication that, in response to a request made by the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare to the Office of the President of the Judiciary on the effect given to sections 256, 292, 294 and 414 of the Penal Code in cases of labour protests, the latter only provided information on cases of the offence of civil disobedience examined by the Judicial Panel on Criminal Peace, according to which 1,126 cases were examined between 2023 and July 2025. Noting that the information provided continues to be limited to the application of the offence of disobedience examined by the Judicial Panel on Criminal Peace, without referring to the other offences covered by the allegations made by the MSICG, the Committee once again requests the Government to provide specific information on any type of case in which any of the above sections of the Penal Code have been applied in practice to labour protests.