A legal reform in El Salvador that seeks to fire all judges over the age of 60 that was approved by allies of President Nayib Bukele came under criticism from a U.S. official on Thursday, in the latest American rebuke of the president's agenda.
The over-60 purge is also set to apply to prosecutors, among other judicial branch employees, and forms part of Bukele's broader effort to revamp the Central American nation's justice system.
Jean Manes, the head of business affairs for the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador, took to Twitter on Thursday to criticize the age-based employment policy. El Salvador risks arbitrarily shrinking its own talent pool, she added, if it engages it what she described as age discrimination. On Tuesday, lawmakers from Bukele's ruling party passed a series of bills to reform judiciary and prosecutor personnel laws, defending them as needed to clean up a system they say has doled out biased decisions in the past.