After the recent reforms to the Penal Code and the Law for the Prohibition of Maras, Gangs, Groups, Associations and Organizations of a Criminal Nature, concern has arisen in the lawyers’ union that they may be criminally prosecuted if they defend members of criminal structures.
Private lawyers consulted by LA PRENSA GRÁFICA, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, assured that there is a latent threat of being criminally prosecuted if they defend gang members who have been captured during the emergency regime.
Two of these professionals confirmed that this risk exists and the first thing that would happen is that they would open a process in the Professional Investigation Section of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ).
“Just as they are silencing journalists, so are lawyers. I wouldn’t be surprised if a criminal figure was created to prosecute us, since when you talk about professional investigation it is to suspend you as a lawyer and give you a professional death,” said one of the consulted.
Other professionals approached do not know if the Government intends to investigate them for defending alleged gang members, but they said that if that happens it would be something that would violate human rights and would be unconstitutional.
“I haven’t heard of that, but it wouldn’t surprise me. It’s the regime’s modus operandi. It would be to finish subjugating citizen rights, exterminate half-existing glimpses of democracy and consolidate a dictatorship,” said another of the litigants.
The professionals assured that the Bukele government would be capable of threatening and prosecuting them, since, if it has already done so with the judges, it will probably do the same with the lawyers. The concern lies in the reform to article 345 of the Penal Code.
“In the reform there is a section that, just as they are arbitrary in applying the law, they can perfectly apply it, because the reform says that ‘whoever makes agreements with gang members’; then, obviously, if we defend someone who belongs to a criminal group, regardless of who pays him, they can be linked to making an agreement with someone from the gang,” said a lawyer.
However, the professionals assure that the Government could not initiate investigations, because there are international agreements signed by El Salvador in which they oblige the States to guarantee the free exercise without threats. They mention that the Constitutional Chamber has established precedents in which they made an analysis regarding the role of the defense attorney and consider that the illicit activity of their defendants should not be related to the lawyers. “But here they are obviously going to want to incriminate just for the fact of defending them,” said another of those consulted.
The Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, approved during the 8th United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, establishes in article 16 that “governments shall ensure that lawyers: a) can perform professional functions without intimidation, hindrance, harassment or undue interference”. That’s what professionals rely on.
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