One Year in, Mexico’s Judicial Reform Is Mix of Successes and Defects Patrick Corcoran - Insight Crime
go to original August 8, 2017

Mexico's judicial reform falls short of hyped expectations (Jess Loughborough/Flickr)

Mexico's landmark judicial reform just celebrated the first anniversary of its implementation, but the law's lingering defects and unfulfilled promise have limited its impact.

The 2008 reform's centerpiece was the overhaul of the long-criticized trial system, creating an adversarial, open trial procedure modeled on countries like the US. This, in turn, was aimed at reducing corruption in trials, protecting the oft-abused rights of the accused, and streamlining the process for convicting and incarcerating the guilty.

The reform also included a raft of additional provisions that created alternative processes to deal with certain crimes, and sought to standardize protocols for police responding to crimes, among myriad additional changes.

The bill originally passed by an overwhelming margin: 71 of 96 senators supported the measure, along with 462 of 468 deputies. Such popularity reflected widespread sentiment that this was one of the genuinely farsighted and potentially transformational initiatives of the Felipe Calderón administration. Calderón built his reputation on getting tough on crime, but to many critics, that strategy appeared to boil down to little more than the haphazard deployment of military troops to the most violent cities.

The judicial reform was something very different. It seemed like an attempt to attack the root causes of Mexico's violence and build the foundation of a modern rule of law. In theory, the new law would improve the professionalization of the men and women working within the criminal justice system, and bend their incentives away from collusion with criminal actors. A reduction in corruption would therefore inspire greater trust from the broader population, which would participate with police bodies more willingly. This virtuous cycle would create, in an ideal world, a justice system more capable of resisting organized crime.

The judicial reform established an eight-year window for implementation that expired in June 2016. So now, a little more than a year into Mexico's experience with the fully implemented reform, how does it measure up against the lofty goals put forth nearly a decade ago?

Read the rest at Insight Crime

Related: Mexico Justice System: The Judiciary's Serious Nepotism (Sinembargo)

Related: Mexico Justice System: Preventative Prison Isn't the Solution to Increased Crime (Mexico Voices)

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