El Salvador's Supreme Court declared some of President Mauricio Funes' September 2011 recommendations for the Access to Public Information Law unconstitutional, according to El Faro.
The judges ruled that the Salvadoran president overstepped his office's power by restricting information that was not declared "reserved" by legislators and granting himself the right to veto candidates for the Access to Information Institute. Funes used this right to block all candidates, slowing the creation of the body, according to the website ElSalvador.com.
Recently, the website El Faro claimed that the Accounts Court denied two of its solicitations for public information. Supposedly, the court argued that El Faro could only request documents after May, incorrectly citing the date that the Access to Public Information Law was due to take effect. According to the website, Article 10 establishes that the law applies to all information kept by the authorities and that the law took effect in May 2011 and not 2012, as the court erroneously claimed.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
