El Salvador 1983
El Salvador’s 1983 constitution was constructed and promulgated during the country’s lengthy, violent civil war. On October 15, 1979, a military coup overthrew the elected government citing institutionalizing elections free of fraud as one of its main objectives. In 1980, the moderate Christian Democratic Party (PDC) joined the ruling junta. The new government agreed to the restore constitutional order suspended by the coup and to develop a democratic political system. The government realized that bringing the country in conformity with international democratic political norms was essential in order to continue receiving substantial economic and military aid from the United States.
The first step towards fulfilling this promise was to hold elections for a Constituent Assembly that would be charged with creating a new constitution and scheduling presidential elections. On March 28, 1982, the government held elections for the 60-member Constituent Assembly, despite a request from the United Nation’s Commission for Human Rights that the elections be postponed until the heightened levels of politically-motivated violence could be reduced and proper conditions could prevail. Leftist political parties boycotted this election, resulting in a majority of the Constituent Assembly hailing from conservative political parties.
The Constituent Assembly began work on the new draft in April 1982, and voted to restore the 1962 constitution with exclusions until new document approved. A subcommittee of the assembly started authoring an initial draft in June 1982 and submitted it to the assembly a year later in June 1983. Before the Constituent Assembly began to debate the final draft, it took eight days to consider submissions from the public. The assembly debated and revised the draft between September and November 1983. On December 15, 1983, the Constituent Assembly approved the final draft by the necessary two-thirds majority. It entered into force on December 20, 1983. The constitution was significantly amended in November 1991.