Lawyers Say Mexico Supreme Court Ruling Is Setback for Human Rights Fernando Camacho Servin - La Jornada
go to original November 18, 2013

The refusal of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJ) [announced last week] to prosecute judges of amparo [of "protection", i.e. judges who rule on appeals and injunctions] who do not comply with the obligation to implement national and international legal standards that most protect the guarantees of people will waste an opportunity to consolidate the human rights constitutional amendment signed in June 2011 [which gave international human rights treaties signed by Mexico legal status in the country], and is even a reversal of the same, warn experts on legal matters.

Luis Tapia, defense attorney for the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center, regretted that the amendment will be a failure, even though it made possible implementing the resolution of the Supreme Court whereby the Constitution and international human rights treaties are hierarchically at a par and judges are required to use the elements of whatever legal source that gives greater protection to the defendant.

"The Supreme Court had the opportunity to give real content to the revised Article I of the Constitution, but it went backwards in the face of that opportunity, because a closed and regressive mentality stilll rules. Many justices said, 'how can we say that a judge can violate human rights? Let's say they can not go wrong'," he deplored.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

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