Jorge Mario García Laguardia

Dr Jorge Mario García Laguardia is a Guatemalan jurist. He has been a tenured lecturer at several Guatemalan and foreign universities, including the Universidad de San Carlos in Guatemala City, where he founded the School of Political Science, and the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and he has served the Guatemalan state in several juridical capacities.

García Laguardia's academic work has focussed on three main areas: the history of public law, Latin American integration (particularly that of Central America), and constitutional law.

He spent a number of years in exile during Guatemala's Civil War, lecturing and conducting research at the UNAM in Mexico City.

In 1983 he became executive director of the Interamerican Center for Electoral Advice and Promotion (Centro Interamericano de Asesoría y Promoción Electoral, Capel), based in San José, Costa Rica. Between 1985 and 1989 he worked for the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Institute of Human Rights.

As the Guatemalan Civil War drew to a close, he returned to his country and was appointed a magistrate of the Constitutional Court; he was serving there during President Jorge Serrano's attempted "self-coup" of 25 May 1993, when the Court was instrumental in preserving the country's constitutional order, preventing a military takeover, and installing Ramiro de León as caretaker president. After his time with the Constitutional Court, he was appointed to serve as the country's Procurator (ombudsman) for Human Rights (Procurador de Derechos Humanos).