From 2021 onwards El Salvador has experienced a growing concentration of power in the executive, which increasingly controls the judicial and legislative branches, whose own oversight roles have been diminished. Despite the constitutional prohibition of immediate presidential re-election, president Nayib Bukele ran again for the 2024 elections and won his second term, further consolidating power in the executive.
As of March 2022, El Salvador has been under a permanent state of emergency, otherwise known as the ‘exceptional regime’, which has been renewed 40 times and is expected to continue as state policy. Initially, the state of emergency entailed the suspension of four constitutional rights: freedom of association and assembly, the right to defence, the time limit for administrative detention, and the inviolability of the home. However, its prolonged implementation has resulted in the suspension and violation of other human rights and procedural guarantees, including the right to defence, the presumption of innocence, and due process. This state of emergency has led to the imprisonment of citizens without conclusive evidence and the denial of immediate access to lawyers. The detention without a court order is also permitted for up to 15 days (instead of 72 hours).
Furthermore, mass judicial proceedings are being carried out, resulting in the conviction of large numbers of people, who are being grouped into criminal groups without any clear criteria. More than 88 000 people have been detained since the state of emergency started. By mid-July 2025, civil society organisations had documented 427 deaths in state custody relating to those who were captured under the exceptional regime, most of whom were not convicted, and many of whom showed signs of being tortured while in prison. The exceptional regime has also affected the right to privacy of communications, allowing the interception of communications without the established judicial guarantees.
With the absence of effective checks and balances, the situation is concerning for citizens whose fundamental rights are impeded, without any realistic options for recourse. The context is highly polarised. The Government claims strong legitimacy and popular support, but there are concerns around democratic backsliding, a lack of institutional independence, and the impact of government actions on civil liberties.
The consolidation of power escalated in 2025 with moves to disempower and control civil society actors through the passing of the Foreign Agents Law. This law has had a profound negative impact on civil society in that not only does it restrict foreign funding and place financial pressure on civil society organisations (CSOs), it also provides excessive powers for authorities to control and sanction them. It has also brought a degree of legal uncertainty that poses an operational risk to many civil society actors.
Enabling principles scores
