El Salvador Perspectives

El Salvador's National Assembly Wednesday repealed Decree 743 , the controversial law which attempted to impose a requirement of unanimity on the Constitutional Court. The decree had set off a firestorm of protests from civil society groups and had created a constitutional crisis in the country. Both ARENA and the FMLN deputies voted for the repeal, after both parties had flip-flopped about their positions on the law. The repeal of Decree 743 serves to strengthen the principal of judicial independence in the country and will fortify El Salvador's democracy in the long run.

El Salvador's Constitutional Court, which rules on whether laws and executive actions violate the country's constitution, has emerged as a champion of the voting rights of individuals while paring back some of the powers of political party leadership. In July 2010, the Constitutional Court ruled that legislative elections had to permit independent candidates and not simply involve closed slates of names chosen by political party leaders. The Constitutional Court has ruled that two political parties, the PCN and PDC, no longer can run in elections, because they failed to achieve in the 2004 elections the minimum number of votes necessary to stay alive. This ruling set aside as a nullity a political accord reached among El Salvador's politicians which had allowed those parties to continue fielding candidates in subsequent elections.  As a consequence, on July 1, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal dissolved the PCN and PDC .  (Or did it? -- last week it appeared that the ...

There is no resolution to the constitutional crisis in El Salvador over Decree 743, the law designed to make it more difficult for independent thinking judges to declare laws unconstitutional. For those who want an overview of this dispute, our friends at Voices from El Salvador have put on their blog a  comprehensive timeline of the passage and subsequent protests surrounding Decree 743.  There is also an overview on the story here at the Spanish language site of the BBC. It is truly unique to see the different branches of El Salvador's government positioning themselves while the protests from civil society do not let up. For example, president Mauricio Funes found it necessary to take out a full page ad in the newspapers to explain why he signed the law (he thinks it is constitutional and will promote institutional stability).   Funes also attacks ARENA for switching positions on the law and now calling for its repeal after they allegedly received assurances that...

The protests continue over the action of the Salvadoran National Assembly to try and change the rules to make it more difficult for the country's highest court to rule laws unconstitutional. The law, called Decree 743, would require a unanimous vote of the court's five judges to invalidate an unconstitutional law. The four judges responsible for the major rulings of the Constitutional Court ruled that Decree 743 was itself invalid and proceeded with only four votes to accept a suit involving presidential spending. The position of the judges sets up an institutional crisis with no particular way to solve it if the National Assembly and Funes do not back down. The possibility of the National Assembly backing down was described by Alfredo Cristiani, the former president and current leader of ARENA. In an interview with La Prensa Grafica , Cristiani indicated that ARENA is going to reverse its position and now introduce a bill to repeal Decree 743. Together with the votes ...

The Constitutional Court (Sala de lo Constitucional) of El Salvador's Supreme Court is the judicial body which has the responsibility for ruling on whether laws passed in the country are constitutional or not. The Constitutional Court is made up of five judges, and recently they have been issuing important decisions which work in favor of vindicating good governance, transparency, and the value of an individual citizen's votes. Our friends at Voices of El Salvador describe the recent work of the court: Since becoming magistrates in 2009, Belarmino Jaime, Florentín Meléndez, Rodolfo González y Sidney Blanco have chosen strategic cases to strengthen national institutions and target corruption within government agencies. Over the past two years, the four magistrates have passed down some very important decisions, while the fifth magistrate, Nelson Castaneda, has mostly abstained from votes. In one example, the Court condemned a law that reallocated funds left over from the g...