The Association of Journalists The Savior (APES) announced on Wednesday its concern about the alleged proposals to reform the Constitution being prepared by Nayib Bukele’s Government, among which is one that involves the professional secrecy of journalists’ “sources”, which would affect the freedom of the press in the country and that could be approved expeditiously in the Legislative Assembly.
“In this context of neglect of press freedom, it is very likely that these types of reforms will be launched and that there will be no prior reflection in the Legislative Assembly,” Gabriel Labrador explained in the presentation of the state of the press during 2023, the APES Freedom of Expression rapporteur.
He pointed out that among these proposals, which the president received Nayib Bukele In 2021, at the hands of its vice president, Félix Ulloa, there is one that involves professional secrecy.
“Journalists have professional secrecy and it is what allows us to do our work without fear” and “under this context of attacks (on the press) It is worrying that a Government says that it is going to regulate professional secrecy”Labrador noted.
The proposal seeks to include in article 6 of the Constitution, which recognizes the right to freedom of expression, a subsection that indicates that “the law will regulate the right to the conscience clause and professional secrecy in the exercise of these freedoms.”
According to jurists, among the reform proposals that would affect freedom of the press and expression is one for mandatory membership of professionals and another that requires the media to collaborate with the State.
For the president of the APES, Angélica Cárcamo, if these reforms are approved “only people who have an academic degree can practice the profession.”
“The majority of the union, today, does not have a university degree and would be excluded from being able to practice journalism,” he maintained and recalled that the human rights organizations of the Inter-American Organization of Human Rights (OAS) have maintained in The mandatory membership of journalists violates freedom of expression.
In the last plenary session of the 2021-2024 legislature of the Legislative Assembly, with a “waiver of procedures” and with the push of a button, a reform to an article of the Magna Carta was approved that would allow the same Legislative Assembly to approve and ratify reforms to the Constitution.
The original wording of the second paragraph of article 248 established that the only way to modify the Constitution was through approval in a legislature with a simple majority and its ratification with a qualified majority.
In September 2020, President Bukele appointed Ulloa, a traitor to the ex-guerrilla cause, to coordinate the study and proposal to reform the Constitution.
It was in September 2021 that Bukele received a draft to reform more than 200 articles of the Constitution. However, this document has not been presented to Congress yet.