New Standards of Justice: Uncovering Motivations for Mexico’s Recent Judicial Reforms amid a Security Crisis

From the introduction: Mexico is in a state of siege. In recent years, organized crime and drug-related violence have escalated dramatically, taking innocent lives and leaving the country mired in bloodshed. The Mexican government, under the leadership of President Felipe Calderón, has responded in part by significantly extending the reach of its security operations, deploying thousands of federal police officers and military troops to combat the activities of drug cartels, and collaborating with the United States on an extensive regional security plan known as the Mérida Initiative. In the midst of the security crisis, however, the government has somewhat paradoxically adopted judicial reforms that protect human rights and civil liberties rather than erode them, specifically the presumption of innocence standard in criminal proceedings and the implementation of oral trials. Assuming that the new laws on the books will be applied in practice, these reforms represent an important commitment on the part of the government to uphold human rights and civil liberties. This is in stark contrast to the infamous judicial reforms in Colombia—the institutionalization of anonymous or “faceless” prosecutions in special courts—implemented after a surge in leftist and cartel brutality, and the murders of several prominent public and judicial officials in the 1980s.

Supporting Parallel Legal Systems as a Means of Improving Access to Justice in Guatemala

Parallel legal systems can and do exist within a single sovereign nation, and rural Guatemala offers one example. Such parallel systems are generally viewed as failures of legal penetration which compromise the rule of law. The question addressed in this paper is whether the de facto existence of parallel systems in Guatemala benefits the indigenous population, or whether the ultimate goal of attaining access to justice requires a complete overhaul of the official legal system. Ultimately, the author concludes that while the official justice system needs a lot of work in order to expand access to justice, especially for the rural poor, the existence of a parallel legal system can be a vehicle for, rather than a hindrance to, expanding such access.

Modern Judicial Reform in El Salvador and Brazil

A comparative assessment of the successes and failures of the judicial reform efforts of El Salvador and Brazil in the 1980’s produces striking results. The reforms varied greatly in scope and were conducted in very different socio-political and economic backgrounds. While El Salvador’s reforms seemed narrow and ill-planned, on paper it appeared that Brazil’s broad reforms would be a successful model for any country with a fledgling democracy. Brazil’s reforms were an exercise in constitutionalism, implementing genuine separation of powers and receiving legislative and executive support. I was very surprised that these different approaches produced strikingly similar negative effects on the people’s assessment of the judiciary. From this outcome I concluded that while judicial reform of a corrupt or inefficient judiciary is an important step in ensuring the rule of law in society, it can not be the vehicle through which democratic reform is implemented. Quite to the contrary, for successful judicial reform to take place there must be considerable penetration of the law in society through enforcement of unbiased legislation, consistency in the laws and their enforcement, and sufficient time for the reform to have an effect on society.