TITLE II. THE RIGHTS AND FUNDAMENTAL GUARANTEES OF THE PERSON
CHAPTER I. INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND THEIR REGIMEN OF EXCEPTIONS
FIRST SECTION. INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS
Article 2
Every person has the right to life, physical and moral integrity, liberty, security, work, property and possession, and to be protected in the conservation and defense of the same.
The right to honor, personal and family intimacy, and one’s own image is guaranteed.
Indemnification, in conformity with the law, is established for damages of a moral character.
Article 3
All persons are equal before the law. For the enjoyment of civil rights, no restrictions shall be established that are based on differences of nationality, race, sex or religion.
Hereditary offices and privileges are not recognized.
Article 4
Every person in the Republic is free.
No one who enters its territory shall be a slave nor the individual who traffics in slaves be a citizen. No one shall be subjected to servitude or to any other condition that injures their dignity.
Article 5
Every person has the liberty to enter, remain in, and leave the territory of the Republic, save the limitations that the law establishes.
No one shall be obligated to change their domicile or residence, except by order of a judicial authority in special cases and by means of the requirements indicated by the law.
No Salvadoran shall be expatriated, nor his entry into the Republic prohibited, nor a passport or other documents of identification for his return be denied. Neither shall the right to leave the territory of the Republic be prohibited, except by resolution or sentence of a competent authority, dictated in accordance with the laws.
Article 6
Every person may freely express and disseminate his thoughts provided they do not subvert the public order nor injure the moral, honor or private lives of others. The exercise of this right shall not be subject to previous examination, censorship or bond; but those who infringe on the laws [while] making use of this right, shall respond for the offense they commit.
In no event may the press, its accessories, or any other media destined to the dissemination of thought be sequestered as an instrument of crime.
The businesses which devote themselves to written, radioed or televised communication and other publishing businesses shall not be the object of state confiscation (estatización) or nationalization, either by expropriation or by any other proceeding. This prohibition is applicable to the stocks or shares (cuotas sociales) of their owners.
The mentioned businesses shall not establish different tariffs or make any other type of discrimination due to the political or religious character of what is published.
The right to respond is recognized as a protection of the fundamental rights and guarantees of the person.
Public shows shall be subject to censorship in conformity with the law.
Article 7
The inhabitants of El Salvador have the right to associate freely and to meet peacefully, without arms, for any lawful purpose. Nobody shall be obligated to belong to an association.
A person shall not be limited or impeded from the exercise of any licit activity because he does not belong to an association.
The existence of armed groups of a political, religious or guild character is prohibited.
Article 8
No one is obligated to do what the law does not order nor deny themselves of what it does not prohibit.
Article 9
No one shall be obligated to perform work or render personal services without fair remuneration and without their full consent, except in cases of public disaster and others specified by the law.
Article 10
The law shall not authorize any act or contract that implies the loss or irreparable sacrifice of the liberty or dignity of the person. Nor shall it authorize agreements in which a person covenants his own proscription or exile.
Article 11
No person shall be deprived of the right to life, liberty, property and possession, nor any other of his rights without previously being heard and defeated in a trial according to the laws; nor shall he be tried twice for the same cause.
Persons have the right to habeas corpus when any individual or authority illegally or arbitrarily restricts their liberty. Habeas corpus shall also proceed when any authority attacks the dignity or physical, mental or moral integrity of detained persons.
Article 12
Every person accused of an offense shall be presumed innocent while his guilt is not proven in conformity with the law and in public trial in which all the guarantees necessary for his defense have been assured.
The detained person shall be immediately and clearly informed of his rights and of the reasons for his detention, and cannot be compelled to make a declaration. The detained is guaranteed the assistance of a defense lawyer (defensor) during the proceedings of the auxiliary organs of the administration of justice and in judicial proceedings, in the terms established by the law.
Declarations obtained against the will of the person lack value; whoever so obtains and employs them shall incur penal responsibility.
Article 13
No governmental organ, authority, or functionary shall issue orders for detention or imprisonment if it is not in conformity with the law, and these orders shall be always written. If an offender is caught in flagrante [delicto], he may be detained by any person to be immediately delivered to the competent authority.
Administrative detention shall not exceed seventy-two hours, within which the detained must be consigned to the order of a competent judge, with the diligences that he may have practiced.
Detention for investigation shall not last longer than seventy-two hours, and the corresponding court shall be obligated to notify the prisoner in person of the motive for his detention, to receive his unsworn statement (indagatorio), and to decree his liberty or provisional detention, within the stated period.
For reasons of social protection, subjects who, by their antisocial, immoral, or harmful activities reveal a dangerous state and offer imminent risks for society or individuals, shall be subjected to re-educative or re-adaptative security measures. The said security measures shall be strictly regulated by law and subject to the competence of the Judicial Organ.
Article 14
The power to impose punishments corresponds solely to the Judicial Organ. However, the administrative authority may sanction, through resolution or sentence and through the correct process, violations of laws, regulations or ordinances, through an arrest of up to five days or through a fine, which may be exchanged for social services provided to the community.
Article 15
No one shall be tried except in conformity with laws promulgated prior to the action in question, and by courts previously established by the law.
Article 16
The same Judge shall not try the same case in different instances.
Article 17
No Organ, functionary or authority may remove pending cases, nor re-open closed trials or procedures. In case of correction of [a] penal matter[,] the State shall indemnify, in conformity with the law, the victims of the duly proven judicial errors.
Indemnification shall be possible for delay of justice. The law shall establish the direct responsibility of the functionary and the derivative [responsibility] of the State.
Article 18
Every person has the right to address written petitions, in a decorous manner, to the legally established authorities; and to have such petition resolved and to be informed of the result.
Article 19
Search or examination of the person shall only be practiced to prevent or investigate crimes or offenses.
Article 20
The home is inviolable and can only be entered by consent of the person who inhabits it, a court order, a crime detected in the act or imminent danger of its perpetration, or grave risk of persons.
The violation of this right will allow reclamation of indemnity for the damages and losses caused.
Article 21
The laws shall not have retroactive effect, except in matters of public order and in penal matters if the new law is favorable to the offender.
The Supreme Court of Justice will always have the authority to determine, within its competence, if a law is or is not of public order.
Article 22
Every person has the right to dispose freely of his property in conformity with the law. Property is transferable in the form determined by the laws. There shall be free making of wills (testamentifacción).
Article 23
The freedom to make contracts in conformity with the laws is guaranteed. No person who has the free administration of his property may be deprived of the right to settle his civil or commercial affairs by compromise or arbitration. As to those who do not have free administration, the law shall determine the cases in which they may do so and the necessary requirements.
Article 24
Correspondence of every kind is inviolable; if intercepted, it shall not be given credence nor accepted as evidence in any legal action, except in the cases of insolvency proceedings and bankruptcy.
Interference of telecommunications is prohibited. Exceptionally, the temporary intervention of any kind of telecommunications may be judicially authorized, in a written and reasoned form, maintaining in any case the secrecy of private issues that are unrelated to the process. Information drawn from an illegal intervention will have no value.
The attested contravention of what is established in this Article, by any official, will be just cause for the instant destitution from his office and will lead to compensation for damages caused.
A special law shall determine the crimes in which investigation of this authorization may be granted. It will also indicate the controls, periodic reports to the Legislative Assembly, and administrative, civil and criminal responsibilities and sanctions that the officials that illegally apply this exceptional measure will incur in. The enactment and amendment of this law demands the favorable vote of at least two thirds of the total number of elected deputies.
Article 25
The free exercise of all religions, without other restrictions than those required by the moral and the public order, is guaranteed. No religious act shall serve as evidence of the civil status of persons.
Article 26
The juridical personality of the Catholic Church is recognized. The other churches may obtain recognition of their personality in conformity with the law.
Article 27
The death penalty shall be imposed only in cases foreseen by the military laws during a state of international warfare.
Imprisonment for debt, perpetual punishment, infamy, outlaws (las proscriptivas) and all forms of torture are prohibited.
The State shall organize the penitentiary centers with the objective of reforming offenders, educating them, and teaching them work habits, seeing to their re-adaptation [into society] and the prevention of crime.
Article 28
El Salvador concedes asylum to the foreigner who desires to reside in its territory, except in cases provided for by the laws and by international law. These exceptions shall not include anyone persecuted only for political reasons.
The extradition shall be governed in accordance with the International Treaties and, when involving Salvadorians, shall only proceed if specifically provided for in the corresponding treaty, and if said treaty has been approved by the Legislative Branch of the respective signatory countries. In every case, its provisions shall consecrate the principle of reciprocity and shall provide Salvadorians with all the criminal and procedural guarantees established by this Constitution.
The extradition shall proceed when the crime has been perpetrated in the territorial jurisdiction of the soliciting country, except in the case of crimes of international transcendence, and shall never take place in cases involving political crimes, even if common crimes arise as a result.
The ratification of all Extradition Treaties shall require the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the elected Deputies.
SECOND SECTION. REGIME OF EXCEPTION
Article 29
In cases of war, invasion of territory, rebellion, sedition, catastrophe, epidemic, or other general disaster, or serious disturbances of the public order, the guarantees established in Articles 5; 6, first paragraph; 7, first paragraph; and 24 of this Constitution shall be suspended, except for meetings or associations with religious, cultural, economic or sport purposes. This suspension may affect all or part of the territory of the Republic and may be accomplished by a decree of the Legislative Organ or the Executive Organ, as the case may be.
Likewise, the guarantees contained in Articles 12, second paragraph, and 13, second paragraph, of this Constitution, shall be suspended whenever the Legislative Organ so accords, with the favorable vote of three quarters of the elected Deputies; the administrative detention not exceeding fifteen days.
Article 30
The period of suspension of constitutional guarantees shall not exceed 30 days. After this period has lapsed, the suspension may be extended for an equal period and by means of a new decree, if the circumstances which motivated it continue. If such a decree is not issued, the suspended guarantees shall remain re-established in full right.
Article 31
When the circumstances that motivated the suspension of constitutional guarantees disappear, the Legislative Assembly, or the Council of Ministers, according to the case, shall re-establish such guarantees.
CHAPTER II. SOCIAL RIGHTS
FIRST SECTION. THE FAMILY
Article 32
The family is the fundamental basis of society and shall have the protection of the State, which shall dictate the necessary legislation and create the appropriate organizations and services for its integration, well-being and social, cultural, and economic development.
The legal foundation of the family is marriage and rests on the juridical equality of the spouses.
The State shall foment marriage; but the lack of this shall not affect the enjoyment of the rights established in favor of the family.
Article 33
The law shall regulate the personal and patrimonial relations of spouses amongst themselves, and between themselves and their children, establishing the rights and reciprocal duties on an equitable basis; and shall create the necessary institutions to guarantee its applicability. Likewise it shall regulate the family relations resulting from the stable union of a man and a woman.
Article 34
Every child has the right to live in familial and environmental conditions that permit his integral development, for which he shall have the protection of the State.
The law shall determine the duties of the State and shall create institutions for the protection of maternity and infancy.
Article 35
The State shall protect the physical, mental and moral health of minors, and shall guarantee their right to education and assistance.
Antisocial conduct of minors that constitutes a crime or misdemeanor shall be subject to a special juridical regime.
Article 36
Children born in or out of wedlock and adopted children, shall have equal rights before their parents. It is the obligation of these to give their children protection, assistance, education and security.
The records of the Civil Register shall not indicate any sign (calificación) of the nature of filiation, nor shall birth certificates express the civil status of the parents.
Every person has the right to have a name that identifies him. The secondary law will regulate this matter.
The law shall also determine the forms of investigating and establishing paternity.
SECOND SECTION. LABOR AND SOCIAL SECURITY
Article 37
Labor is a social function; it enjoys the protection of the State, and it is not regarded an article of commerce.
The State shall employ all resources that are in its reach to provide employment to manual or intellectual workers, and to ensure him and his family the economic conditions for a dignified existence. In the same form, it shall promote the work and the employment of people with physical, mental or social limitations or disabilities.
Article 38
Labor shall be regulated by a Code which shall have the principal objective of harmonizing the relations between employers and workers, establishing their rights and obligations. It shall be based on general principles that tend toward the improvement of the living conditions of workers, and shall include especially the following rights:
- In the same business or establishment and under identical circumstances, to equal work shall correspond equal remuneration for the worker, without regard for his sex, race, creed, or nationality;
- Every worker has the right to earn a minimum wage, which shall be fixed periodically. To fix this wage, attention shall be paid above all to the cost of living, the type of work, the different systems of remuneration, the distinct zones of production, and other similar criteria. This wage shall be sufficient to satisfy the normal needs of the worker’s home in their material, moral and cultural aspects.For piecework, contract work (por ajuste) or work for a lump sum (precio alzado), it is obligatory to assure the minimum wage per day (jornada) of work;
- Salary and social benefits, in the quantity determined by law, are unattachable and cannot be compensated or retained, except for obligations to supply essential support (obligaciones alimenticias). Amounts also may be retained for social security, union quota, or tax obligations. Worker’s instruments of labor are unattachable;
- The salary shall be paid in legal tender (moneda de curso legal). The salary and social benefits constitute privileged credits in relation to other credits that may exist against an employer;
- Employers shall give their workers a bonus for each year of work. The law shall establish the form in which one shall determine the quantity in relation to salaries;
- The ordinary workday (jornada) of effective daytime work shall not exceed eight hours, and the work-week shall not exceed forty-four hours;The maximum hours of overtime (horas extraordinarias) for each type of work shall be determined by the law.
The night shift (jornada) and the shift that requires dangerous or unhealthy tasks shall be shorter than the daytime shift and shall be regulated by law.
The limitation on working hours shall not apply in cases of force majeure.
The law shall determine the length of pauses that shall interrupt the workday when, attending to biological reasons, the rhythm of tasks so demand, and of those that shall intercede between two workdays.
Overtime and night work shall receive additional remuneration (recargo);
- Every worker has the right to one day of remunerated rest for each work week, in the form required by law.The workers who do not enjoy rest on the days previously indicated, shall have the right to additional remuneration for the services rendered on these days and a compensatory leave;
- Workers shall have the right to paid rest on the holidays (días de asueto) designated by law; [the law] shall determine the kind of work for which this disposition shall not apply, but in those cases, workers shall have the right to extraordinary remuneration;
- Every worker that accredits a minimum of services performed during a given period, shall have the right to an annual paid vacation in the form determined by law. Vacations shall not be compensated by money and, to the obligation of the employer to grant them corresponds the obligation of the worker to take them;
- Those less than fourteen years old, and those having reached this age but who remain subject to obligatory education in virtue of the law, may not be employed in any type of work.Their employment shall be authorized when it is considered indispensable for their subsistence or that of their family, provided that this does not prevent compliance with the minimum of obligatory education.
The workday for those under sixteen years old cannot be more than six hours a day and thirty-four hours a week, in any kind of work.
Unhealthy or dangerous work is prohibited for persons under eighteen years of age and women. Night work is also prohibited for persons under eighteen years old. The law shall define (determinar) dangerous and unhealthful work;
- The employer who discharges a worker without just cause is obligated to indemnify him according to the law;
- The law shall determine under which conditions employers are obligated to pay their permanent workers who resign from their work an economic compensation (prestación), which amount shall be fixed in relation to their salaries and time of service.Resignation produces its effects without the need for acceptance by the employer, but the latter’s refusal to pay corresponding compensation constitutes a legal presumption of unfair discharge.
In the case of total and permanent incapacitation or death of the worker, the worker or his beneficiaries shall have the right to the compensations they would receive in the case of voluntary resignation.
Article 39
The law shall regulate the conditions under which collective labor contracts and agreements shall be concluded. The stipulations that these contain shall be applicable to all workers in the businesses that signed them, although they do not belong to the contracting union, and also to the other workers who enter such enterprises while the contracts or agreements are in effect. The law shall establish the procedure to make uniform working conditions in different economic activities, on the basis of provisions contained in the majority of collective contracts and agreements in force in each type of activity.
Article 40
A system of professional training (formación) is established for the preparation and qualification of human resources.
The law shall regulate the scope, extent and form in which the system is to be put in effect.
Contracts of apprenticeship shall be regulated by law, to assure that the apprentice shall receive training in an occupation, dignified treatment, equitable remuneration, and welfare (previsión) and social security benefits.
Article 41
The domestic worker (trabajador a domicilio) has the right to an officially designated minimum wage, and to the payment of indemnification for time lost by motive of an employer’s delay in ordering or receiving work or for the arbitrary or unjustified suspension of work. Domestic workers shall be recognized as having an analogous legal situation as other workers, taking into consideration the special characteristics of their work.
Article 42
The working woman shall be entitled to paid rest before and after childbirth, and to the conservation of her employment.
The laws shall regulate the obligation of employers to install and maintain crib rooms and places of custody for the children of workers.
Article 43
Employers are obligated to pay indemnification and to provide medical, pharmaceutical and other services established by the laws for workers who suffer work accidents or any occupational disease.
Article 44
The law shall regulate the conditions to be met by workshops, factories, and working premises.
The State shall maintain a technical inspection service charged with seeing that legal norms for labor, assistance, welfare, and social security are strictly complied with, to the end of verifying their results, and suggesting pertinent reforms.
Article 45
Agricultural and domestic workers have the right to protection with respect to wages, working hours, rests, vacations, social security, indemnification for dismissal, and, in general, to social benefits. The extent and nature of the aforementioned rights shall be determined by law according to the conditions and peculiarities of the work. Persons who perform services that are domestic in character in industrial, commercial businesses, social entities and other similar enterprises shall be considered manual workers and shall have the rights granted to these.
Article 46
The State shall propitiate the creation of a bank owned by the workers.
Article 47
Employers and private employees without distinction of nationality, sex, race, creed or political ideas, whatever their activity or the nature of the work they complete, have the right to associate freely for the protection of their respective interests, by forming professional associations or trade unions. Workers in official autonomous institutions, public officials and employees and the municipal employees shall have the same right.
Public officials and employees covered in the third paragraph of Article 219 and of Article 236 of this Constitution, members of the Armed Forces, of the National Civil Police, members of the judicial career and public servants who exercise decision-making functions or have directive responsibilities or are employees whose obligations are of a highly confidential nature, will not have the right stated in the previous paragraph.
In the case of the Public Ministry, along with the head members of the institutions that comprise it, their respective adjuncts, auxiliary agents, auxiliary procurators, labor procurators and delegates will not have the right to unionization.
Said organizations have the right to juridical personality and to be duly protected in the exercise of their functions. Their dissolution or suspension shall be decreed only in the cases and with the formalities determined by the law.
The special norms for the constitutions and functioning of professional and trade union organizations of the countryside and the city shall not restrict freedom of association. All exclusion clauses are prohibited.
Members of the boards of directors (directivas) of trade unions shall be Salvadorans by birth and during the period of their election and mandate, and until a year has passed after they cease their functions, they shall not be dismissed, suspender for disciplinary reasons, transferred, or their working conditions reduced, except for justifiable cause previously approved by a competent authority.
Also, the right to collective bargaining, in accordance to law, is recognized to the workers and employees mentioned in the last part of the first paragraph of this Article. Collective agreements will begin to take effect the first day of the fiscal exercise (or fiscal year) following that of its celebration. A special law shall regulate this matter.
Article 48
Employers have the right to suspend work and workers the right to strike, except in the case of indispensable public services that are established by law. To exercise these rights, no previous approval shall be necessary, after having procured the solution to the conflict which generates them through stages of peaceful solution established by law. The effects of the strike or suspension are antedated to the moment that these initiate.
The law shall regulate these rights with respect to their exercise and conditions.
Article 49
A special jurisdiction is established for labor. The procedures in labor matters shall be regulated in a form that will permit a rapid solution to conflicts.
The State has the obligation to promote conciliation and arbitration, so they constitute effective means for the peaceful solution of labor conflicts. Special administrative boards of conciliation and arbitration shall be established to solve collective conflicts of interests or of an economic character.
Article 50
Social security constitutes a public service of an obligatory character. The law shall regulate its scope, extent, and form.
Said service shall be rendered by one or various institutions, which must observe adequate coordination amongst themselves to assure a good policy of social protection, in specialized form and with maximum utilization of resources.
Employers, workers, and the State shall contribute to the payment of social security in the form and quantity determined by the law.
The State and employers shall be exempt from the obligations imposed by law in favor of the workers, to the extent that these are covered by Social Security.
Article 51
The law shall determine which businesses and establishments, due to their special conditions, are required to provide the worker and his family with suitable housing, schools, medical assistance, and other services and attentions necessary for their well-being.
Article 52
The rights consecrated in favor of the workers cannot be renounced.
The enumeration of the rights and benefits to which this chapter refers, does not exclude others that are derived from principles of social justice.
THIRD SECTION. EDUCATION, SCIENCE, AND CULTURE
Article 53
The right to an education and to culture is inherent to the human person; in consequence, the preservation, promotion, and dissemination of culture is an obligation and primary end of the State.
The State will propitiate research and scientific occupations.
Article 54
The State shall organize the educational system for which it will create the necessary institutions and services. Natural and juridical persons are guaranteed the liberty to establish private centers of teaching.
Article 55
Education has the following objectives: to achieve the integral development of the personality in its spiritual, moral and social dimension; to contribute to the construction of a more prosperous, just and humane democratic society; to inculcate a respect for the human rights and the observance of the corresponding duties; to combat all spirit of intolerance and hate; to know the national reality and to identify oneself with values of the Salvadoran nationality; and to propitiate the unity of the people (pueblo) of Central America.
Parents shall have the preferential right to choose the education of their children.
Article 56
All inhabitants of the Republic have the right and the duty to receive a simple (parvularia) and basic education that will train them to perform as useful citizens. The State shall promote the formation of special education centers.
When imparted by the State, simple, basic secondary and special education shall be free.
Article 57
The teaching imparted in official educational centers shall be essentially democratic.
Private educational centers shall be subject to the regulation and inspection of the State and shall be subsidized when they do not have profitable goals.
The State shall exclusively take in its charge the training of teachers (magisterio).
Article 58
No educational establishment shall refuse to accept students because of the marital status of their parents or guardians, nor for social, religious, racial, or political differences.
Article 59
Literacy is of social interest. All inhabitants of the country shall contribute toward it in the form determined by law.
Article 60
To exercise the teaching profession it is required to accredit one’s capability in the form determined by the law.
In all public or private, civil or military teaching centers the instruction of national history, civics, morality, the Constitution of the Republic, human rights and the conservation of the natural resources shall be obligatory.
National history and the Constitution shall be taught by Salvadoran professors.
Academic (cátedra) liberty is guaranteed.
Article 61
Higher education shall be governed by a special law. The University of El Salvador and the others of the State shall enjoy autonomy in teaching, administrative and economic aspects. They shall lend a social service, respecting academic liberty. They shall be governed by statutes registered within said law, which shall establish the general principles for their organization and functioning.
The funds (partidas) destined to the sustainment of the state universities and those necessary to assure and increase its patrimony shall be consigned annually in the State Budget. These institutions shall be subject, in agreement with the law, to the inspection of the corresponding state organism.
The special law shall also regulate the creation and functioning of the private universities, respecting academic freedom. These universities shall lend a social service and shall not pursue profitable ends. The same law shall regulate the creation and functioning of official and private technological institutes.
The State shall keep watch for the democratic functioning of the institutions of higher education and for their adequate academic level.
Article 62
The official language of El Salvador is Spanish. The government is obligated to keep watch for its conservation and teaching.
The native languages that are spoken in the national territory form part of the cultural patrimony and shall be the object of preservation, dissemination and respect.
Article 63
The artistic, historical, and archeological wealth of the country form part of the Salvadoran cultural treasure, which shall be under the safeguard of the State and subject to special laws for its conservation.
El Salvador recognizes the indigenous peoples and will implement measures to maintain and develop their ethnic and cultural identity, worldview, values and spirituality.
Article 64
The National Symbols are the National Colors (Pabellón) or National Flag, the Shield of Arms and the National Anthem. A law shall regulate what concerns this matter.
FOURTH SECTION. PUBLIC HEALTH AND SOCIAL ASSISTANCE
Article 65
The health of the inhabitants of the Republic constitutes a public good. The State and the persons are obligated to see to its conservation and restoration.
The State shall determine the national health policy and shall control and supervise its application.
Article 66
The State shall give free assistance to the sick who lack resources, and to the inhabitants in general when the treatment constitutes an effective means of preventing the dissemination of a communicable disease. In this case, every person is obligated to submit themselves to such treatment.
Article 67
The public health services shall be essentially technical. Sanitary (sanitarias), hospital, paramedic and hospital administration careers shall be established.
Article 68
A Higher Public Health Council shall oversee the public health of the country. It shall be comprised of an equal number of representatives from the medical, odontological, chemical-pharmaceutical, medical veterinary, clinical laboratories, psychology and nursing professional associations, and others which require a license to practice and which the Higher Public Health Council has authorized to establish their own board; it shall have a President and a Secretary appointed by the Executive Organ. Its organization shall be determined by law.
The exercise of the professions that are directly related with the public health of the country shall be supervised by legal institutions created by scholars belonging to each of these professions. These institutions shall have the authority to expel from the professional exercise of their professions those members of the professional association under their control who have exercised their profession with manifest immorality or ineptitude. The disbarment of professionals shall be determined by the competent institutions in accordance with the due process.
The Higher Public Health Council shall have cognizance of and resolve the appeals (recursos que se interpongan) that are presented against the resolutions pronounced by the organizations alluded to in the preceding paragraph.
Article 69
The State shall be equipped with the necessary and indispensable resources for permanent control of the quality of chemical, pharmaceutical and veterinary products through surveillance organisms.
Likewise the State shall control the quality of food products and the environmental conditions that may affect health and well-being.
Article 70
The State shall assume charge of indigents who, because of their age or physical or mental incapacity, are unable to work.
CHAPTER III. CITIZENS, THEIR POLITICAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES IN THE ELECTORAL BODY
Article 71
All Salvadorans more than eighteen years old are citizens.
Article 72
The political rights of the citizen are:
- The exercise of suffrage;
- To associate oneself to constitute political parties in accordance with the law and to join those already formed;
- To opt for public posts complying with the requirements determined by this Constitution and secondary laws.
Article 73
The political duties of the citizen are:
- The exercise of suffrage;
- To comply with the Constitution of the Republic and to see that it is complied with;
- To serve the State in conformity with the law.
The exercise of suffrage includes, moreover, the right to vote in the direct popular consultation contemplated by this Constitution.
Article 74
The rights of citizenship are suspended for the following causes:
- Judicial decree of formal imprisonment;
- Mental derangement;
- Judicial interdiction;
- Refusal to fill, without just cause, a popular elective post; in this case, the suspension shall last the whole period that the rejected position should have been occupied.
Article 75
The rights of citizenship are lost:
- By those of notoriously vitiated (viciada) conduct;
- By those convicted of crime;
- By those who buy or sell votes in the elections.
- By those who subscribe to acts, proclamations, or adherences to promote or support the re-election or continuation of the President of the Republic, or who employ direct means leading toward this end;
- By functionaries, authorities and the agents of these who restrict freedom of suffrage.
In these cases, the rights of citizenship are restored by a clear declaration of rehabilitation by a competent authority.
Article 76
The electoral body is composed of all citizens capable of casting their vote.
Article 77
For the exercise of suffrage, it is an indispensable condition to be registered in the Electoral Register compiled by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.
The legally registered political parties shall have the right to maintain watch over the compilation, organization, publication and updating of the Electoral Registry.
Article 78
The vote shall be free, direct, equal and secret.
Article 79
In the territory of the Republic, election districts shall be established as determined by law. The basis for the electoral system is population.
For the election of Deputies one shall adopt a system of proportional representation.
The law shall determine the form, time and other conditions for the exercise of suffrage.
The date of the elections for President and Vice President of the Republic shall precede the initiation of the presidential period by no less than two months nor more than four.
Article 80
The President and the Vice President of the Republic, Deputies of the Legislative Assembly and of the Central American Parliament, and Members of Municipal Councils, are popularly elected functionaries.
When, in the elections for President and Vice President of the Republic, no participating political party or coalition of political parties has obtained an absolute majority of votes in conformity with the scrutiny practiced, a second election shall be carried out between the two political parties or coalition of political parties that have obtained the greatest number of valid votes; this second election shall be held during a period no more than thirty days after the results of the first election were declared to be firm.
When by force majeure or fortuitous case, duly qualified by the Legislative Assembly, the second election cannot be carried out within the indicated period, the election shall take place within a second period of not more than thirty days.
Article 81
Election propaganda, even without prior summons, shall be permitted only four months before the date established by law for the election of President and Vice President of the Republic; two months before in the case of Deputies; and one month before in the case of Municipal Councils.
Article 82
The ministers of any religious cult, members in active service in the Armed Force and members of the National Civil Police may not belong to political parties nor opt for popularly elected positions.
Nor may they produce political propaganda in any form.
The exercise of the vote shall be exercised by citizens in places determined by law and shall not be realized in the precincts of military or public security installations.
