President Nayib Bukele announced on his X account that his security cabinet has presented this Tuesday to the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador a proposal for a constitutional reform that would allow life imprisonment —until now prohibited in Salvadoran legislation— for those convicted of murder, rape, or terrorism.
Bukele explained: “At this moment, our security cabinet is presenting to the Legislative Assembly a constitutional reform to endorse life imprisonment (until now prohibited by the Constitution) for murderers, rapists, and terrorists.”
In the same announcement, Bukele challenged lawmakers with a key question about the future of this measure: “We will see who supports this reform and who will dare to defend that the Constitution continues to prohibit murderers and rapists from remaining in prison.”
El Salvador proposes life imprisonment for serious crimes after state of exception
The Bukele administration maintains that during the state of exception, which has exceeded four years in effect, the security strategy profoundly transformed the country’s situation, allowing the neutralization —according to the
Minister of Justice and Security Gustavo Villatoro— of the “
permanent and continuous threat” that criminal structures maintained for two decades. The official emphasized before the Assembly that this reform implies an irreversible change and affirmed that more than “
six million Salvadorans” support the process, representing popular sovereignty.
Villatoro provided a block of historical data: in the last twenty years,
gangs and criminal groups would have been responsible for about “
120,000 deaths”, of which “at least forty thousand” are attributed to a justice system that —in the words of the minister— “put thousands of victims, thousands of witnesses against the wall” through the intimidation of citizens and the lack of trust in the institutions.
The official proposal is presented accompanied by a legislative package that modifies the Penal Code, the Juvenile Criminal Law, and the Law against Acts of Terrorism, in addition to other regulations. Villatoro detailed that the purpose is “to homologate the secondary laws with article twenty-seven, second paragraph, of our Constitution”, thus aligning the country’s penal structure to reinforce the punishment of murderers, rapists, and terrorists. As the minister indicated to the Plenary, “perpetual punishment will only be imposed on murderers, rapists, and terrorists”, while the prohibition for other cases such as imprisonment for debts or infamous crimes is maintained.
Cross with international organizations and defense of sovereignty
In his speech, the head of Security maintained a confrontational tone when referring to human rights organizations and
international entities critical of the regime. “They recently took off their masks. They are no longer the sheep they were selling. Now they are really demons that represent the evil and poverty and insecurity in which they have subjected our country and our beloved Latin America,” said
Villatoro when presenting the reform, anticipating the resistance of actors who, in his opinion, defend “violent criminals.”
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When contextualizing the reform at a regional scale,
Villatoro linked the security and criminal legislation problems of El Salvador with the rest of Latin America. He assured that “we are not the only ones who have these useless laws to face serious threats, violent crimes; all Latin American countries have them.” The minister claimed that, in the last three decades, the movements for victims’ rights had distorted the legal agenda, inverting “the victim and the perpetrator, an authority agent.”
