[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Page 12581]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      RECENT EVENTS IN EL SALVADOR

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I want to speak very briefly about recent 
events in El Salvador which is in the midst of a constitutional and 
political crisis involving the composition and power of the Supreme 
Court.
  Essentially what happened is that in June the Supreme Court ruled 
that the National Assembly had abused its power by naming justices to 
the court on two separate occasions, and ordered a new judicial 
selection process with which the National Assembly then refused to 
comply. A majority of the deputies took the extraordinary step of 
appealing the Supreme Court's decision to the Central American Court of 
Justice, and a final ruling is expected in a matter of days.
  Last week, Congressman Jim McGovern, who is probably more 
knowledgeable about El Salvador than anyone else in Congress, and I 
commented on the situation. We said:

       We are encouraged by the commitment by President Funes and 
     representatives of El Salvador's political parties to resolve 
     this crisis expeditiously. We agree with the Department of 
     State that this is a matter to be resolved by Salvadorans 
     through dialogue, and we reaffirm our support for U.S. 
     assistance for El Salvador which addresses a range of mutual 
     interests, from improving law enforcement to combating 
     poverty.
       Over the past 30 years, El Salvador has faced many 
     challenges, from civil war, to corruption, to cyclones. This 
     constitutional political crisis is the latest test of whether 
     the country's governmental institutions can emerge stronger, 
     the rule of law strengthened, and its people more united.

  Since then, there has been further progress towards a resolution of 
this crisis. As a former prosecutor, Chairman of the Judiciary 
Committee and Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on State and 
Foreign Operations that funds international aid programs, I can think 
of few things as important to any society as an independent judiciary. 
Like free and fair elections, it is a cornerstone of democratic 
government. Sometimes I agree with the decisions of our Supreme Court 
and sometimes I disagree. But we comply with its decisions because we 
know the alternative is chaos and the erosion of the checks and 
balances that protect our 226 year old democracy.
  I suspect the people of El Salvador feel similarly, and I am hopeful 
that however their representatives resolve this matter the independence 
of the Salvadoran judiciary will be preserved and strengthened.

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