In March 2022, El Salvador declared a state of emergency that would reshape not only the country’s political landscape but also their legal foundation. Under the current President Nayib Bukele, the government launched an extreme and shocking crackdown on gang violence, that relied mainly on mass arrests and eventually mass trials to process thousands of accused individuals. While these present-day policies are widely celebrated and credited for the dramatic reduction in violent crime, they have also raised many serious and legal concerns regarding due process, judicial independence, and the long-term health and future of El Salvador’s democratic institutions. El Salvador’s current phenomenon depicts how democratic systems are able to erode gradually through increments, not just through a single rupture, but through a series of institutional changes made in the name of security.
The state of emergency was declared on March 27, 2022 after one of the most deadliest weekends in El Salvador’s recent history. From March 25 to 27, 87 individuals were killed in El Salvador, including 62 in a single day, the highest single-day homicides seen in decades. President Bukele moved swiftly amidst this tragedy, and the Legislative Assembly approved an emergency decree that suspended key constitutional protections for all citizens in El Salvador: the right to legal counsel, limits on pretrial detention (extended from 72 hours to 15 days), and protections against warrantless arrest and surveillance. What was initially authorized as just a 30-day measure has since been renewed monthly (currently 49 times) remaining in effect through late March 2026.
The results in terms of crime reduction in El Salvador have been drastic. The national homicide rate in the country fell from approximately 53 per 100,000 people in 2018 to around 1.9 per 100,000 by 2024, a decline of over 98 percent. The overall public support however, has been correspondingly high in which a 2023 poll found that 92 percent of Salvadorans supported the extension of the state of emergency. For many Salvadorian citizens, the policies represent a genuine improvement in their day-to-day life after decades of gang-imposed fear and extortion.
However, by focusing only on the outcomes, we minimize the reality and legitimacy in which those outcomes are achieved. As arrests have now surged past 91,000 by early 2026, the courts began processing defendants in mass hearings, sometimes grouping hundreds of accused individuals together in a single proceeding. This has made it now structurally difficult to evaluate each case on its own merit. Reports from human rights organizations describe many individuals detained to be based on weak or anonymous tips, physical appearance, or assumed neighborhood affiliation, with very limited access to legal representation. The Salvadoran solidarity group, CISPES, roughly estimate that approximately 26,000 of those imprisoned may be innocent. Specific cases, such as those individuals with no criminal history being swept into mass proceedings with no meaningful opportunity to challenge the charges faced, emphasizes a deeper theme of how the structure of these trials in El Salvador can produce unjust outcomes on individuals, regardless of intent.
These changes have broader implications for how the current legal system function within El Salvador. Courts are designed to operate independently and assess cases individually, not as a whole. When procedures are restructured for the sole purpose of speed and scale, that mechanism is diminished. Under El Salvador’s emergency framework, the executive branch has taken on an expanded role in shaping not only how justice is administered but has reduced the ability of judicial and legislative institutions to act as meaningful checks.
The democratic consequences extend beyond just the courts. In February 2024, Bukele was re-elected to a second term despite a constitutional provision explicitly banning presidential re-election. By 2026, his authority has grown increasingly centralized. Institutions that would normally constrain executive power have less influence under this emergency framework. We also see the formal structures of democracy, elections, legislative assemblies, continue to exist while operating within a system that has become structurally less balanced.
This ongoing pattern is consistent with how democratic backsliding typically unfolds. Rather than a sudden collapse, the institutions remain nominally intact while their capacity to limit power begins to erode through increments. El Salvador still holds elections and maintains formal democratic structures, but the way those structures’ function has changed in meaningful ways.
Public support for these policies can be partly understood through the lens of political polarization. Polarization does not only reflect ideological disagreement, it can divide society into opposing sides that perceive one another as existential threats (McCoy et al., 2018). In El Salvador, the sustained framing of gangs as an overriding national danger reinforces this dynamic. Research suggests that when individuals perceive an opposing group as a serious threat, they become more willing to accept government actions that would otherwise be seen as violating democratic standards (McCoy et al., 2018). This helps explain why policies like mass trials retain broad approval even if concerns and doubts about fairness persist.
El Salvador’s path raises a question that extends beyond its country’s borders: what does democracy mean when elections continue but institutional constraints weaken? Reducing violent crime is truly a significant and meaningful achievement, one that has substantially improved the life of many Salvadorans. However, the suspension of due process, the erosion of judicial independence, the unconstitutional re-election of a sitting president, and the acceptance of emergency powers as permanent authority introduce many long-term structural risks for democracy in El Salvador. What begins as a targeted response to a specific crisis can, over time, reshape how power is organized and exercised across an entire political system.
In a time where it is hard to look away from erosion in our own country, I enjoyed reading your post and becoming further educated on erosion happening abroad. The question that you introduce in the last paragraph of your post really poses an existential question that many democracies have suffered due to picking the wrong answer. I fully agree with your point that while the reduction in violent crime and a feeling of safety among citizens of El Salvador is an amazing feat, doing it without following the rule of law sets a very dangerous precedent. Due process is a core value of democracies and without it the judicial system loses legitimacy. This lack of due process and arresting citizens due to anonymous tips is almost comparable to 1940s Germany when people would sell out their own neighbors due to living in constant fear. I am very curious, while also very sad for the El Salvadorian citizens, to see just how far this overreach of executive power will go. If it continues to progress as rapidly as it has since 2022 I hope that civic action and protests will begin to gain more of a foothold as people realize that their newfound feeling of security has come at the cost of their freedom.