ABSTRACT
Attempts to evaluate the implications for democracy of judicial procedures and roles, or to reform the judicial process to make it more compatible with democracy, are of limited usefulness if they overlook the concrete social context in which that process functions. Comparisons of civil and common law systems of criminal law provide one example. A closer look at the context of particular proposals for reform of the judicial process may help us see that protection of democracy and human rights may in some instances require more rather than less government intervention. An independent judiciary is often characterized as a bulwark against repression. The extreme concentration of land ownership and resulting impoverishment of many Saivadorans, the lack of a democratic culture, and the war of the Salvadoran military against large segments of its own population, only recently brought to a halt, all posed apparently insuperable barriers to the project.
