Mexico's Huge Justice Reforms Are Scrambling to Cross the Finish Line Karla Zabludovsky - BuzzFeed
go to original March 12, 2015

Outside the courtroom in Durango, in northern Mexico, workers were drilling into the staircase and walls, filling the Federal Center for Penal Justice’s modern new hallways with dust. The thumping and stamping construction sounds — and, at one point, music — bled into one of the courtrooms, drowning out the judge’s words.

Everyone struggled to hear as the judge, sitting before a man accused of carrying an unauthorized weapon, leaned into the microphone and said that the $200 fine requested by the prosecutor was excessive and that the accused would have to check in at the criminal justice center every 15 days until the investigation concluded.

Just a few years ago, this scene would have been unimaginable in Mexico, where trials have historically been conducted not only in writing but in utmost secrecy, with victims, the accused, and lawyers rarely having direct access to a judge.

An overhaul of the judicial system, passed in 2008 and slated to be completed by June 2016, aims to increase transparency in judicial investigations and make courtroom proceedings public and speedy. Oral trials, like the one in the unfinished justice building in Durango, are the backbone of the new system.

Passed under former President Felipe Calderón, the revamp is doing away with the partial inquisitorial system, in which a judge both investigates the facts and renders a decision, in favor of an adversarial one, where both parties in a trial must gather evidence and argue their case before a neutral judge.

The revamp is also instituting a system of alternative justice, which offers accusers and the accused an opportunity to mediate and negotiate a solution before having to take their cases to court. In theory, this will reduce jail populations and ensure that judges can focus on the most contentious cases.

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