According to what was stated by the Salvadoran president Nayib Bukelestarting next Sunday April 26the Government of El Salvador may impose life imprisonment on minors, 12 to 17 yearslet them be condemned by some serious crimesas homicide, feminicide, rape or gang membership.
Given this situation, this change represents the definitive break with the model of juvenile justice tradition of El Salvador, so the constitutional reform, already ratified, seeks to stop organized crime by making this life sentence mandatory for minors, until now reserved only to adults.
According to him Official Gazette of El Salvador, the official newspaper of the State, the new reform introduces the mandatory review of life imprisonment for minors once the individual has completed the 25 years of imprisonment. Therefore, this is a point that differentiates the sentencing measure that is applied to adults.
Given the circumstances, this new deadline of one quarter of a century sets the first opportunity to evaluate the possible release of those convicted. However, the regime controlled freedom It will continue to be restricted and will only be allowed to those who have reached the established minimum number of years, along with other additional conditions.
The UN calls for reviewing life sentences
During the morning of this Wednesday, April 15, the Office of the High Commissioner for United Nations for Human Rights (OHCHR) asked the Government of El Salvador to review the life sentence approved for minors who commit murders, rapes or participate in acts that Nayib Bukele describes as terrorists.
“We urge the authorities of El Salvador to promptly review the worrying constitutional and legal changes that provide for life imprisonment for boys and girls from the age of 12, in contradiction with international human rights standards,” said the OHCHR, considering that the norm violates the children’s rights.
In turn, the spokesperson for the OHCHR, Marta Huradorecalled that the changes, which are part of a hardening of President Nayib Bukele’s security policy in the territory of El Salvador, “contravene the Convention on the Rights of the Child”, which requires prioritizing “their rehabilitation and reintegration” in less 25 years old.
Faced with this scenario, the Salvadoran president decided to respond to the OHCHR through a publication in social networkswhere Nayib Bukele reminded the office that on April 27, 1994, more than three decades ago, El Salvador emerged from a bloody war civil that left more than 85 thousand dead at the hands of minors.
Bukele’s response
“The Savior gave impunity to commit crimes to minors under 18 years of age, who even reached kill and rape to other young people who had only committed crimes minors and that they could have been reformed. So no, thank you so much. We are not going to return to past“added the 44-year-old Salvadoran president.
“Take your social experiments to other countries that have not suffered what we have suffered; Maybe they believe them. I hope not. The gangs They became the most criminal groups bloody in the world, they kept 80% of our country prisoner and left a quarter of a million dead or missing,” he concluded.