The hearing in the Chamber of Administrative Disputes followed a lawsuit brought by Funde ALAC against the appointment of Douglas Pablo Rodríguez Fuentes as President of BCR.
The hearing against the President of the Republic, Nayib Bukele, to be held this morning in the Administrative Dispute Chamber, for the appointment of the president of the Central Reserve Bank of El Salvador (BCR) Douglas Pablo Rodríguez Fuentes, was adjourned after the plaintiff, the Centro de Asesoría Legal Anticorrupción de El Salvador (ALAC), disputed the fact that Rodríguez had lawyers from BCR’s legal team as its defenders.
Although the lawsuit is directed against Bukele, the current head of the BCR is part of that process.
According to Wilson Sandoval, attorney and coordinator of Funde Alac, what the president of the BCR has done is a violation of the ethics of the government: “During the hearing we noticed that those who defended him are the same lawyers of the BCR, and that is unethical, it violates the law of government ethics, ”said Sandoval.
According to the lawyer, Rodríguez Fuentes emerges during the controversial trial in his non-institutional personal character, that is to say that the lack of a curriculum or the lack of motivation of the qualifications of said official is an element of a personal and special nature of that person who deviates from the institutional work he performs as chair of the BCR.
SEE: The new President of the BCR, Douglas Rodríguez, does not meet the legal requirements for his position
On October 27 of the previous year, ALAC filed suit against Executive Agreement No. 350 of September 19, 2020, issued by the President of the Republic, consisting of the appointment of Mr. Douglas Pablo Rodríguez Fuentes as President of the Central Bank. Reservation, for not proving the attitudes or requirements required by law, in this case, BCR Organic Law.
One of the requirements to be met by the person appointed to this position is to demonstrate at least 10 years of experience in the economic field. According to the lawsuit, Rodríguez Fuentes doesn’t have it, nor does he have the technical academic experience required for the position.
More specifically, the Organic Law of the BCR provides in Article 10, first paragraph, that in order to be appointed as a member of the Board of Directors of the BCR, the designated person must “have outstanding competence in economic and financial matters”. ; while the second paragraph of art. 25, stipulates that the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the BCR, “in addition to the requirements of Article 10 of this law, must have at least ten years of experience in economic and financial matters.
Rodríguez was appointed President of the BCR on September 19, following the removal of Nicolás Martínez, after appearing before the delegates and confirming that Nayib Bukele’s government had more than $ 3 billion available to attend the emergency as a result of the COVID 19 pandemic. This contradicted the government’s version that they had no resources, so they launched a campaign against the deputies.
After Martínez’s departure, Rodríguez Fuentes arrived, but with his arrival, Alac wanted. Due to the use of state resources to face a personal trial, ALAC assured it will report this to the Government Ethics Tribunal in the coming days.
After admitting the ALAC incidents, the Administrative Disputes Chamber moved the hearing to Feb. 3, Sandoval said.
De Diario de Hoy tried to get hold of the institutional version of the BCR or its president, but that was not possible. Fatima Quispe, from that institution’s communications agency, promised to hand over the request and then communicate with this newspaper with the response obtained, but at the time this material was published, she had not done so.