El Salvador Legislative Assembly rejects human rights review commission

The majority bloc of the Nuevas Ideas party and its allies in the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly have rejected a proposal to create a high-level commission to review cases of innocent individuals detained under the country's ongoing state of exception.

The initiative, presented by ARENA deputy Francisco Lira, sought to amend the State of Exception Law by adding articles to establish a mechanism for guaranteeing human rights. This commission would have included representatives from the Ministry of Justice, the Attorney General's Office, the Procuraduría General de la República, the Procuraduría para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos, academia, and civil society. Its primary mandate would have been to coordinate the release of citizens captured arbitrarily.

During the plenary session, the request for an agenda modification received only three votes in favor and one against. The proposal cited President Nayib Bukele’s previous international statements suggesting that national security could be sustained without the continuous state of exception. It also referenced calls from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to restore suspended rights and address the consequences of the current security regime, which has seen over 91,000 detentions to date.