In El Salvador, a dispute between the Constitutional Court and the National Assembly has led to two separate groups of judges claiming to be the country’s lawful Supreme Court. In an email interview, Linda Garrett, a senior policy analyst for El Salvador at the Center for Democracy in the Americas, discussed El Salvador’s constitutional crisis.
WPR: What is the immediate background to El Salvador’s constitutional crisis?
Linda Garrett: The confrontation between the Constitutional Court and a majority coalition in the legislature is as political as it is institutional, a reflection of the deep polarization that still divides El Salvador 20 years after the end of its bloody civil war.