FILE PHOTO: El Salvador President Nayib Bukele speaks at a news conference during a nationwide quarantine as El Salvador’s government undertakes steadily stricter measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in San Salvador, El Salvador May 26, 2020. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas
SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) – Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has for the second time vetoed emergency legislation passed to regulate the Central American country’s coronavirus policy and usher in a gradual reopening of its economy, his legal team said on Saturday.
Bukele’s legal counsel, Conan Castro, said Bukele had vetoed the law backed on May 30 by Congress because it breached a number of constitutional guarantees including the rights and health of workers and cooperation between organs of government.
Castro was speaking to reporters at a news conference in San Salvador with other members of Bukele’s legal team.
Bukele, who has been at loggerheads with Congress for weeks over coronavirus policy, had vetoed a similar law in May on the grounds it put the public’s health at risk. He had said he would do the same with the law passed last weekend.
Bukele has imposed some of the toughest measures in the Americas against the pandemic, repeatedly clashing with lawmakers over the scope of the lockdown he is pursuing.
Bukele’s administration is also ready to sanction any companies that restart operations on Monday without proper authorization, Labor Minister Rolando Castro told reporters at a separate news conference in the capital.
Reporting by Nelson Renteria; Editing by Robert Birsel