President of El Salvador Mauricio Funes on Feb. 23 appointed the five members of the Access to Public Information Institute after a delay of more than a year.
The president had previous rejected as unqualified the candidates chosen last January through an unusual nomination process. Candidates were elected by open assemblies of five sectors: universities, press associations, business associations, labor unions and professional associations. The elections producing a list of 30 names.
The president rejected the candidates, arguing that none of them were qualified, using a authority in December was judged unconstitutional. This meant that the President had to appoint from the list of names that he had previously rejected.
He chose Carlos Adolfo Ortega, José Adolfo Ayala Aguilar, Jaime Mauricio Campos, María Herminia Funes de Segovia and Mauricio Antonio Vásquez López. For more see here.
Funes recently rejected legislation to amend the 2011 law that critics said would have weakened the law and the Institute. (See previous FreedomInfo.org report.)
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