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• A version of this post ran on the author's blog, centralamericanpolitics.blogspot.com. The views expressed are the author's own.

In a three-to-two ruling Monday night, Guatemala's Constitutional Court overturned Efrain Rios Montt's guilty verdict and Jose Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez's not guilty verdict and returned the trial to April 19.

 While the dust is still settling, April 19 would mean that witness and expert witness testimony will not need to be re-admitted. The court will be at the point at which it will be preparing to hear closing arguments.

Obviously, the ruling is good news for Rios Montt, but it is bad news for Rodriguez Sanchez, who is in jeopardy again. It's also bad news for the survivors who worked so very hard to secure the guilty verdict.

Now the ruling could be a sign of corruption and impunity. That would obviously be bad. Mauro Rodrigo Chacón and Gloria Porras were the two judges who ruled against overturning the verdict. Chacón represents the University of San Carlos and Porras was appointed during the Colom administration. The court's reversal comes following weeks of escalating attacks in the press from a powerful economic group, veterans' groups, and other right-wing groups.

Or it could be a sign that the Constitutional Court is doing its job and making sure that all parties adhere to established legal practices. That would be good as it doesn't help if justice cuts corners.

Here's what I wrote on Al Jazeera last week:

If Judge Barrios and the other two judges remain in charge of the case and all that needs to be re-argued are closing arguments, the damage is minimal. If the CC determined that the trial court should not have proceeded when it did and it is now returning the case to the point in time at which it should have been stopped, April 19, that is justice in motion. That is a CC that takes its role seriously. However, the ruling might have gone beyond that.

As of tonight, though, the ruling's motivations and implications are not necessarily clear.