In this March 24, 2011 file photo, protesters carry portraits of slain Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero on the 31st anniversary of his death in San Salvador, El Salvador. (AP Photo/Luis Romero. File)Four of the five judges of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador are declaring the 1993 law unconstitutional due to it being "contrary to the right of access to justice, judicial protection or protection of fundamental rights". They also argue that the amnesty law violates the "right of victims to full compensation for crimes against humanity and war crimes constituting serious violations of international humanitarian law".
The Chamber is nullifying the law because it violates two articles of the Salvadoran Constitution which are linked to the American Convention on Human Rights and the Protocol II of 1977 additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 related to the protection of victims of non-international armed conflicts. To Belarmino Jaime's mind, the judge who voted in the minority, amnesty was the price paid to end the armed conflict. The verdict of his colleagues, he says, reopens 32 cases, included in the report of the Truth Commission, for prosecution, which conflicts with principles of legality, non-retroactivity of laws, legal certainty and the prohibition of double jeopardy. Jaime considers that the four judges are exceeding the limits of competence granted to the Chamber by the Constitution.What is clear is that the ruling of the Constitutional Chamber broke the dam of silence. Controversy is now coming thick and fast.
The Truth Commission's report "From Madness to Hope: The Twelve Year War in El Salvador" was published on the 15th of March, 1993, 26 months after the signing of the Chapultepec Accords. The report stated that over 75,000 people were tortured, extrajudicially executed or disappeared during the war. State agents, paramilitary groups and death squads are responsible for 90% of crimes and 3.3% are attributed to guerrillas and other armed unidentified people. With the intention of understanding the letter and spirit of the Truth Commission's report, we spoke with one of the three assigned commissioners from the United Nations, former Foreign Minister of Venezuela, Reinaldo Figueredo Planchart.
