The judiciary of El Salvador comprises a number of courts in a hierarchy. The highest court is the

Supreme Court of El Salvador The Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador ( es, Corte Suprema de Justicia de El Salvador) is the highest court of El Salvador. The court sits in San Salvador. The current president is Judge José Belarmino Jaime, who has held the position f ...

, consisting of 4 different chambers, 3 courts of appeal and a constitutional court. Below the Supreme Court are intermediate appeal courts, with cases heard by panels of three judges. Below them are the civil and criminal courts of first instance, with cases heard by one judge, but sentencing is carried out by three judges. At the lowest level are justices of the peace, dealing with cases involving smaller amounts of money or personal disputes. There is also a Supreme Court for elections.

Reforms

Following the end of the Salvadoran Civil War, the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador and the

Ad Hoc Commission The Ad Hoc Commission was a human rights commission in El Salvador, established as part of the peace accords which ended the Salvadoran Civil War. The purpose of the commission was to examine the conduct of officers of the Armed Forces of El Salvado ...

identified weaknesses in the judiciary and recommended solutions, the most dramatic being the replacement of all the magistrates on the

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

. This recommendation was fulfilled in 1994 when an entirely new court was elected, but weaknesses remain. The process of replacing incompetent judges in the lower courts, and of strengthening the attorneys general's and

public defender A public defender is a lawyer appointed to represent people who otherwise cannot reasonably afford to hire a lawyer to defend themselves in a trial. Several countries provide people with public defenders, including the UK, Hungary and Singapore, ...

's offices, has moved more slowly. The government continues to work in all of these areas with the help of international donors, including the United States. Action on

peace accord A peace treaty is an treaty, agreement between two or more hostile parties, usually countries or governments, which formally ends a state of war between the parties. It is different from an armistice, which is an agreement to stop hostilities; a ...

-driven constitutional reforms designed to improve the administration of justice was largely completed in 1996 with legislative approval of several amendments and the revision of the Criminal Procedure Code with broad political consensus.

References

External links

Salvadoran embassy in the US - information on court system (in English)
{{Judiciaries of North America Government of El Salvador