Human Rights Watch Exposes Due Process Failures in El Salvador’s Mass Gang Trials

Human Rights Watch has published a damning report on El Salvador’s system of mass trials, concluding that hundreds of defendants are being processed through proceedings that fall far short of international fair-trial standards. The report, released on Wednesday, documents how defence lawyers are systematically blocked from accessing case files, communicating privately with clients, and mounting meaningful defences in hearings that can involve hundreds of people at once.

The investigation examined four indictments covering more than 600 defendants, as well as a single court ruling that affected over 120 individuals. Beyond reviewing court documents, HRW interviewed 15 defence lawyers, all of whom described a legal process where fundamental due process rights are routinely denied. The picture that emerges is of a judicial machinery built for speed and conviction rates rather than for weighing evidence and determining individual guilt.

According to the report, defendants in these mass proceedings face vaguely worded charges, evidence that would not withstand scrutiny in an ordinary trial, and procedural irregularities at nearly every stage. Lawyers reported being prevented from viewing their clients’ case files and were unable to hold confidential consultations with the people they were assigned to represent. In effect, the defence function is largely ceremonial.

Juanita Goebertus, HRW’s Americas director, did not mince words in her assessment of the system. “El Salvador’s mass trials are a mockery of justice,” she said in a statement accompanying the report. “These hearings are designed to produce guilty verdicts, not to weigh evidence under due process.” Her comments underscore the organisation’s view that the trials serve a political and punitive purpose rather than a genuinely judicial one.

The mass trials are a central component of President Nayib Bukele’s sweeping security strategy, which began with a state of emergency declared in March 2022 in response to a surge in organised crime. That emergency order suspended several civil liberties and granted law enforcement expanded powers, paving the way for mass arrests across the country. The following year, El Salvador’s Congress passed legislation explicitly authorising courts to try hundreds of defendants together in single proceedings.

Bukele’s government has consistently defended the trials as a necessary tool for dismantling the gangs that terrorised Salvadoran communities for years. Officials argue that the scale of the criminal threat justifies extraordinary legal measures. Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado, for instance, defended a mass trial of nearly 500 alleged MS-13 members in April, stating in a social media post that the gang had operated systematically for years, spreading “fear and mourning among Salvadoran families.”

Yet the human cost of these policies has been enormous. More than 93,000 people have been detained under the emergency order since 2022, including more than 3,000 children. An estimated 120,000 people are currently incarcerated in El Salvador — roughly 2 percent of the country’s entire population, giving it one of the highest incarceration rates anywhere in the world. The country’s prison system has become a defining feature of Bukele’s governance.

Even Bukele has acknowledged that innocent people have been caught in the dragnet. In 2024, he stated that approximately 8,000 arrested individuals had subsequently been released. He pledged at the time to “free 100 percent of the innocent people,” while simultaneously arguing that no system could be perfect. For critics, that admission is an implicit acknowledgement that the mass-arrest strategy lacks the individualised assessment that criminal justice requires.

The HRW report highlights how convictions in the mass trials are frequently secured through the accusation that defendants are gang “collaborators” — a legal category that the organisation describes as dangerously vague. In one case reviewed by HRW, more than 120 people were convicted of unlawful association and handed sentences of either 30 or 45 years. Not a single defendant was acquitted.

For the vast majority of prisoners convicted on such charges, the report states, the only evidence linking them to a gang was a statement from one of two anonymous witnesses who had been granted immunity from prosecution. One lawyer, speaking anonymously to HRW, described the evidentiary chain in stark terms: “Prosecutors say a person is a gang member because a police officer says so,” the lawyer said. “The prosecutor relies on the police report, and the police report relies on unspecified official intelligence or public rumours.”

The court system itself has also drawn scrutiny. The mass cases are heard before the Tribunals Against Organized Crime, a specialised court structure overseen by El Salvador’s Supreme Court. Critics, including HRW, point to a troubling lack of transparency in how these tribunals operate. The identities of the judges presiding over them have not been disclosed — not even to the defence lawyers participating in the proceedings. This secrecy makes it impossible for defendants or their counsel to assess potential conflicts of interest or hold judges accountable for their rulings.

Despite these concerns, Bukele’s government has maintained relatively strong approval ratings in public polling. The president frequently cites such numbers as evidence that Salvadorans broadly support his anti-crime tactics, pointing to sharp declines in homicide rates and the restoration of a sense of safety in communities once dominated by gang violence. For many citizens, the results appear to justify the methods.

Human Rights Watch, however, is calling for independent reviews of all cases brought under the state of emergency. The organisation also demands the release of anyone detained without credible evidence against them. Its report adds to a growing body of criticism from international human rights groups, legal scholars, and foreign governments who argue that El Salvador’s security model trades fundamental rights for a veneer of order.

The Salvadoran government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report’s findings. As the mass trials continue and the prison population swells, El Salvador faces an intensifying international debate over whether security achieved through systemic due-process violations can ever be considered legitimate — or sustainable.