Judges kick up constitutional crisis in El Salvador

El Salvador's Constitutional Court has shown itself to be independent, but the country still lacks a national consensus that the decisions of these independent judges are the ultimate authority.

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

One year ago, I was writing about Decree 743, a law signed by President Mauricio Funes, that tried to change the rules for El Salvador's Constitutional Court to require unanimous decisions rather than majority decisions.   After considerable public opposition, the legislature and president Funes backed down and repealed Decree 743. Now that same court has made a unanimous ruling which has precipitated another constitutional clash among El Salvador's branches of government.   (El Salvador's Supreme Judicial Tribunal (TSJ) has different wings which rule on different areas of law like criminal law, constitutional law, etc.   The " Sala de lo Constitucional" or Constitutional Court rules on whether laws passed by the National Assembly and acts of the executive branch are unconstitutional).

The Constitutional Court ruled that votes by the National Assembly to appoint judges to the TSJ in 2006 and 2012 were unconstitutional. The Court ruled that the constitution requires that one third of the court be elected every three years. The three year cycle matches up to the three year cycle on which deputies to the National Assembly are elected. The Court decided that for every three year term of the National Assembly, that group of legislators can only vote once.  In both 2006 and 2012, the legislature had voted twice to change the make-up of the TSJ's judges. In this way, citizens' votes are taken into consideration (theoretically, at least) because they can alter the make-up of the National Assembly and hence alter the votes for judges of the TSJ.

RELATED: Think you know Latin America? Take our geography quiz!

The Court ordered the National Assembly to take up a new election of the two-thirds of judges who had been named by the legislature in 2006 and 2012. In the meantime, the work for the TSJ has ground to a halt as the judges whose elections have been challenged, are declining to sign any more orders.  Now the National Assembly is refusing to go along with the Constitutional Court's rulings. The National Assembly instead is consulting with legal experts, and is talking about asking the Central America Court of Justice to rule on this conflict between El Salvador's legislative and judicial branches.  Like the dispute in 2011, this is another test of which branch of government in El Salvador is supreme. Having the rule of law be respected requires a national consensus that the highest court in the country has the final say and requires a court with judicial independence. The Constitutional Court has shown itself to be independent, but El Salvador still lacks the national consensus that the decisions of these independent judges are the ultimate authority.

 Tim Muth covers the news and politics of El Salvador on his blog.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Judges kick up constitutional crisis in El Salvador
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2012/0613/Judges-kick-up-constitutional-crisis-in-El-Salvador
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe