The Emergence of Law and Order in El Salvador
By Aaron Custodio ‘26
For the past three decades, El Salvador has continuously faced the problem of gang violence within its borders. In 2015, El Salvador became the most dangerous country in the world, having the highest murder rate with approximately 105 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants despite being a country of only 6 million people (1). In response, Salvadoran leaders have sought to combat violence by targeting gang activity and its ongoing effects on society. Traditionally, this has involved governing through a framework of “rule by law” where legislation is seen as a tool of power and control, allowing lawmakers to directly negotiate with gang leaders and grant them special privileges in an effort to quell gang violence. However, the state of exception enacted by the current president, Nayib Bukele, in 2022, which limits civil liberties in times of emergency, has effectively expanded the government’s scope of power as due process, habeas corpus, and other constitutional rights have been suspended in the name of safety. Bukele’s decision to enact a state of exception serves as a clear example of the erosion of rule by law and a significant shift toward law and order in addressing gang violence.
Throughout the past decade, Salvadoran leaders have been negotiating with imprisoned gang leaders in an effort to dial back bloodshed. Most notably, in 2012, President Mauricio Funes’ government secretly negotiated a truce between the MS-13 and Barrio 18, the two largest gangs in the country. In exchange for improved prison conditions and certain visitation privileges, the gangs officially agreed to the following: “1) to cease all types of hostilities between the two gangs; 2) to cease attacks on members of the national police; 3) to cease attacks on members of the armed forces; 4) to cease attacks against members of the penitentiary system.”(2) The truce was initially successful and the following 15 months saw a drop in the homicide rate by 53%. However, the truce proved unsustainable and by 2014, the situation devolved into a trilateral war between the government, MS-13, and Barrio 18.
Despite the fact that El Salvador recognizes itself as a democratic republic adhering to the “rule of law” whereby the law serves as a safeguard for fairness and justice, its leaders' readiness to manipulate legal frameworks in their efforts to combat gang violence demonstrates a tendency to govern under rule by law instead. In accordance with the Salvadoran constitution, the government’s duty is to uphold and enforce laws that are just and fair for all citizens, ensuring equal rights and constitutional protections regardless of class or status. These values of fairness and equality under the law abide by the concept of the rule of law, as governments under this framework are primarily “concerned with eliminating arbitrariness through general rules applied juridically,” in order to guide political decisions in a clear and consistent way (3). However, the case of the 2012-2014 Salvadoran gang truce between MS-13 and Barrio 18 was a clear example of President Funes taking advantage of his power to apply the law in an inequitable manner by granting special privileges to gang members. Just months after the negotiations were agreed to, Funes personally took credit for murders plummeting by nearly half despite claiming publicly that his administration had nothing to do with the gang truce (4). Regardless, it is evident that instead of governing under the rule of law —which requires the law to be to be fair, impartial, and binding for everyone, including gang members — Funes decided to govern under the rule by law “by straining the limits of legitimate legal order to serve illegitimate goals,” which in his case was for political gain (3). By improving prison conditions only for incarcerated gang leaders and barring police officers from entering established “peace zones” that were controlled by gang communities (2), President Funes undermined the legitimacy of law and the foundational principles of a democratic republic in order to reduce gang violence in the streets and bolster his public image.
Funes's predecessor, Nayib Bukele, was also suspected to have maintained rule of law by continuing to bend legislation in favor of gangs in an attempt to reduce violence. Shortly after Bukele took office in 2019, El Faro, a Salvadoran news outlet, revealed that Bukele's government had secretly negotiated a truce with the leaders of the country’s most powerful gangs in 2020. These accusations were later reaffirmed when the U.S. Treasury accused Bukele’s administration of “providing financial incentives to Salvadoran gangs MS-13 and 18th Street Gang to ensure that incidents of gang violence and the number of confirmed homicides remained low.” (5) The U.S. Treasury even suspected that gang leadership also agreed to provide political support to Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas party in the legislative elections for that year. Despite Bukele later coming out and denying these accusations, this has left much uncertainty to the extent of Bukele’s engagement regarding truce negotiations between his administration and powerful gang leaders. Given that these accusations were never followed up after the state of exception was enacted in 2022, it is difficult to verify their validity. However, if these accusations are indeed true, it would prove that President Bukele had also governed through rule by law during the early years of his administration by exploiting legal provisions to protect gang members from prosecution in exchange for their support in securing votes for his party in the legislative assembly.
Additionally, despite there being efforts made in recent years to strengthen judicial independence in El Salvador, Bukele has demonstrated his willingness to govern under rule by law by going so far as to constrain the powers of the Salvadoran Supreme Court. When the Supreme Court ruled against Bukele’s mandatory COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 due to concerns over human rights violations, the president publicly undermined this decision and just one year later appointed ten new judges, many of whom were Bukele loyalists (6). With Bukele’s “Nuevas Ideas” party holding a majority in the legislature, these appointments were swiftly approved— consolidating power across the executive, legislative, and judicial branches and effectively ensuring that any proposed policy would not be subject to checks from other government branches.
As a result of Bukele’s inflated influence in all the branches of the Salvadoran government, he was able to transition into a framework of law and order, by which the law is strictly enforced in an effort to seek societal stability, often eroding civil liberties to do so. In 2022, 87 people were killed in the span of two days due to gang violence. Bukele responded fiercely to this and on March 27, with the support of his Nuevas Ideas party (7), the Salvadoran legislature enacted a state of exception aimed at tackling gang violence. The state of exception ultimately suspended various constitutional rights, including “restrictions on people’s right to assemble and allow authorities to hold people in detention without charge for up to 15 days, with the right to access a lawyer withheld.” (8) Additionally, the state of exception granted President Bukele emergency powers to call in the national military to round up thousands of suspected gang members in sweeps based on arbitrary claims of a person’s appearance or where they live (9).
Without having the right to due process, habeas corpus, or even the right to access a lawyer, Salvadoran citizens were subjected to strict state surveillance through its military force. With his new emergency powers granted by the state of exception, President Bukele also expanded the powers and roles of police forces and prison institutions. Such an expansion is evident in the creation of El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) which opened in January 2023 amidst the large-scale gang crackdown and has since become the largest prison ever built in Latin America (10). By exerting influence in this manner, Bukele’s state of exception demonstrates the President’s desire to create a sense of security not on “a condition of non-arbitrariness but [rather,] on a condition of non-restlessness,” using excessive force if necessary (3). While the state of exception was meant to be a temporary measure, lasting only 30 days, lawmakers have renewed the emergency measure every month to date. This has resulted in the arrests of over 76,000 Salvadorans, with many detained on the basis of purely arbitrary evidence (11). This further illustrates Bukele’s commitment to governing through law and order— justifying his actions as necessary to quell any resurgence of gang violence despite innocent victims being wrongfully detained and separated from their families.
While various international human rights organizations have condemned President Bukele’s actions in suspending fundamental human rights for those detained by the Salvadoran military, he has received significant praise from the Salvadoran people for restoring safety to the streets. In August 2024, President Bukele received a record-high approval rating of 92%, making him the world’s highest-rated leader largely due to his crackdown on crime (12). Salvadorans no longer have to constantly live in a state of fear as they can now move freely through different neighborhoods and walk peacefully at night. This is even shown through the countries’ homicide rate, as it has been reported that the number of homicides dropped nearly 70% during 2023, with a homicide rate of 2.4 per every 100,000 people (13). This has virtually made El Salvador one of the safest countries in the Americas, demonstrating Bukele’s unprecedented success in eliminating gang violence in the streets by governing at the expense of the Salvadoran citizens' most fundamental constitutional rights.
Although Bukele’s measures have successfully reduced gang violence over the past two years, the ongoing renewal of the state of exception and the expansion of military and prison powers raise concerns about his commitment to democracy and constitutional rights of citizens. Nevertheless, despite international criticism, it is clear that many Salvadorans support Bukele’s law-and-order governance. Thus, it is necessary to assess whether this approach can be justified as a legitimate form of governance for the wellbeing of citizens, or if El Salvador risks endangering its citizens by prioritizing excessive force over adherence to the law in maintaining social order.
Endnotes
(1) Giles, Jeremy. “El Salvador Has Undercounted Homicides under Bukele.” Foreign Policy, 8 Aug. 2024, foreignpolicy.com/2024/08/08/el-salvador-bukele-crime-homicide-prison-gangs/.
(2) Rahman, Siniša Vuković and Eric. “Negotiating with Gangs: Lessons from the 2012 Truce in El Salvador the Sais Review of International Affairs.” The SAIS Review of International Affairs -, 26 Apr. 2023,
(3) Cheesman, Nick. “Law and Order as Asymmetrical Opposite to the Rule of Law.” Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 6.1 (2014): 96–114. Web.
(4) n/a. “Funes Destaca Ante Onu Reducción de Homicidios Gracias a Tregua Entre Pandillas.” Elfaro.Net, 25 Sept. 2012,elfaro.net/es/201209/noticias/9760/Funes-destaca-ante-ONU-reducci%C3%B3n-de-homicidios-gracias-a-tregua-entre-pandillas.htm.
(5) Sherman, Christopher. “U.S. Treasury: El Salvador Government Negotiated with Gangs.” AP News, AP News, 8 Dec. 2021, apnews.com/article/nayib-bukele-el-salvador-gangs-c378285a36d55c18f741c3f65892f801.
(6) Renteria, Nelson. “El Salvador’s Appointment of New Judges Raises Fears of Power Grab.” Reuters, 30 June 2021, www.reuters.com/world/americas/el-salvadors-appointment-new-judges-raises-fears-power-grab-2021-06-30/.
(7) Party was founded by Bukele in 2017 prior to winning the 2019 Presidency
(8) n/a. “How Is a ‘state of Exception’ Changing El Salvador?” Al Jazeera, 7 June 2022, www.aljazeera.com/program/the-stream/2022/6/7/what-is-the-true-impact-of-el-salvadors-state-of.
(9) n/a. “El Salvador Extends Anti-Gang Emergency Decree for 24th Time. It’s Now Been in Effect for Two Years.” AP News, AP News, 9 Mar. 2024, apnews.com/article/el-salvador-gang-crackdown-emergency-decree-154d50d40d1f2a46a48b6880624df141.
(10) Ventas, Leire. “Coming Face to Face with Inmates in El Salvador’s Mega-Jail.” BBC News, BBC, 15 Feb. 2024, www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-68244963.
(11) Janetsky, Megan. “The President Jailed 1% of El Salvador’s Population. Their Children Are Paying the Consequences.” AP News, AP News, 10 Feb. 2024, apnews.com/article/el-salvador-bukele-central-america-crime-gangs-60c3a34c571dfdbdf0a203deb85abf7
(12) n/a. “Nayib Bukele Begins Second Term with Strong 92% Approval Rating.” El Salvador in English, 11 June 2024, elsalvadorinenglish.com/2024/06/11/nayib-bukele-begins-second-term-with-strong-92-approval-rating/.
(13) Reuters. “El Salvador Says Murders Fell 70% in 2023 as It Cracked down on Gangs | Reuters.” Reuters, 3 Jan. 2024, www.reuters.com/world/americas/el-salvador-says-murders-fell-70-2023-it-cracked-down-gangs-2024-01-03/.
