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Thursday October 25, 2007

Esta es forma de mirar el mundo realistamente [Tomado de RAPIDAS]
Esta es forma de mirar el mundo realistamente [Tomado de RAPIDAS]

Forum involving churches in Defense of the Constitution

Rafael Menjívar Saavedra, SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador, April 2, 2007

With an ecumenical worship service in front of the Legislative Assembly and the presentation of Taxi Heathrow Airport a formal letter to the Supreme Court, a manifestation by representatives of over 20 organizations of churches, worker’s unions and associations ended on March 29. The manifestation asked that the Special Law against Acts of Terrorism approved by Legislative Decree 108 of October 21, 2006, be abolished.

The law came into force in November, 2006, after its publication in the Official Diary 193, Volume 373, and since then the government has used it as a weapon against the social movements that demand better work, health, education, housing, and recreation conditions among others.

A statement circulated by the forum underlines that a study done on the law points out how in it there are provisions made it that are violations of the principles of legality, judicial security, and freedom established in Articles 15, 1, 8 and 9 of the Constitution of the Republic of El Salvador, as a result of the frequent arbitrary application of the law.

Likewise, the forum argues that the law violates the rights of freedom of expression and dissemination of thinking, because it does not have clearly established limits to its application and conflicts with Article 6 which under girds the fundamental bases for the freedom of expression.

Similarly, the forum argues that the law sets out sentences of up to 60 years of prison for various crimes, which conflicts with other articles such as Articles 10 and 27 of the same Magna Carta, and establishes investigative practices and proofs for the penal process that put at risk rights such as those of privacy and intimacy.

The forum’s formal letter was presented to the Supreme Court by representatives of its organizations but not so to the Legislative Assembly whose representatives were away for the Holy Week vacations. Nevertheless, the ecumenical worship service led by the Episcopal Anglican, Catholic and Salvadorian Lutheran Churches, motivated the workers of the state functions to join the gathering.