Cruz, a public prosecutor, runs the Special Crimes Unit in the Attorney General’s office in San Salvador. Perla, a public defender, is the criminal defense coordinator for the Procuraduría General de la República in the department of La Libertad.

The Procuraduría and Fiscalía, as the Attorney General’s office is known, are the two halves of what is known as the Public Ministry in El Salvador. Though it is technically not part of the judiciary, this ministry went from relative obscurity to the forefront of the judicial system on April 22, 1998, when the country’s new criminal code and code of criminal procedure went into effect. The new codes vastly expanded the powers and responsibilities of prosecutors and defenders in criminal trials.

Both Cruz and Perla are known as uncommonly zealous and effective practitioners of these new roles, though they each make only $12,000 per year and have almost nothing in the way of technical or staff support.

When the law was still being debated in the Legislative Assembly, however, the prospect of assuming these new roles seemed overwhelming. “We thought we were doomed,” recalls Cruz of the days before the new law went into effect. Though he had been able to attend a one-week crash course on the intricacies of the new codes, most of his colleagues had only a rough understanding of the coming changes. “The first few days were insane, because no one knew exactly how things were going to work out in practice,” Cruz recalls.

It was more than a bureaucratic concern. Among the most radical changes mandated by the code was a new hierarchy of control over the conduct of criminal investigations. In El Salvador, as in most Latin American countries, public prosecutors have historically played a marginal role in such investigations, which were directed by a judge and performed with wide discretion by the police. The police could assign detectives to a particular case, order arrests and handle evidence largely as they saw fit. The new codes turned that structure on its head.

Judges are now limited to issuing decisions based on the validity of evidence, testimony and oral arguments produced by prosecutors on the one side and defenders on the other—all during public trials in which plaintiffs and defendants must be present. Prosecutors, not judges, make the first determination as to whether there is sufficient evidence to make a case, and they have the power to shelve cases that fall short of the standard set by the law. As for the police, “they simply take orders from prosecutors,” says Cruz. “The prosecutor tells the police exactly how to conduct the investigation, because the prosecutor knows what he is going to need to win a case before the judge.”

The reforms were designed to prevent political interference in criminal investigations and limit evidence tampering and other due process violations. Predictably, many sectors within El Salvador’s National Civil Police were not happy about the change. Senior police officials complained publicly that prosecutors were making it impossible to go out and arrest guilty criminals. Tensions flared repeatedly, particularly when the Special Crimes Unit indicted several police officers on charges of fabricating evidence in the case of a murdered journalist.

The Special Crimes Unit investigates complex cases involving high-profile murders, kidnappings, financial fraud and other organized crime. Cruz is expected to do this with a staff of eight prosecutors, one clerk, and two cars. Though Cruz is candid about the virtual impossibility of fulfilling his mandate on such meager resources, he passionately defends the new criminal code. “We still face all kinds of difficulties and obstructions. But now, if a police investigator fails to do something, prosecutors have the authority to demand an explanation, and if the police do not cooperate we can actually file charges. Somehow or other we manage to solve some cases, even if there is always the dissatisfaction of knowing that we could have done more.”

Custodians of integrity. Arístides Perla is equally emphatic about the benefits of the new codes. “Before, the public defender was a decorative figure in a criminal trial, a mere formality,” he says. “We had no control over what took place during the criminal process, and as a result we had no credibility.”

Although El Salvador’s 1983 constitution established every suspect’s right to an attorney, in practice the chronically underfunded Public Ministry often failed to provide one. The position was so poorly paid that it rarely attracted serious professionals, and rules of evidence and procedure under the civil code gave defenders few effective ways of intervening on their client’s behalf. The dilatory nature of the written procedures, which often stretched out over the years, also made it unlikely that a public defender would follow a case through to completion.

Under the new laws, any judicial proceeding at which a defender is not present is considered void. Defenders can call witnesses, conduct their own investigations on a defendant’s behalf, and make objections about evidence or testimony based on clearly defined rules. “We’ve become true custodians of the legal integrity of a judicial proceeding,” says Perla.