Criminal Justice
Promoting and evaluating Mexico’s judicial reform efforts is a core area of focus for the Justice in Mexico Project. In 2008, the Mexican Congress passed a judicial reform package that included legislative changes and constitutional amendments to ten articles (16-22, 73, 115 and 123) that were approved by President Felipe Calderón. After the passage of the reforms, the federal and state governments were given until 2016 —a period of eight years— to transform from its traditional justice system into one that emphasizes the presumption of innocence, an adversarial criminal procedure, and oral advocacy in the courtroom.
All of Mexico’s 31 states and the Federal District are required to implement these reforms by 2016, but several states have already begun to do so.
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Traditional system
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New System
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The scope and scale of change contemplated under the 2008 judicial reforms is enormous. Existing legal codes and procedures must be revised at the federal and state level; courtrooms must be remodeled and outfitted with video-recording equipment; police need to be professionalized and prepared to assist with criminal investigations; judges, court staffs and lawyers need to be retrained; and citizens need to be prepared to understand the purpose and implications of the new procedures.
Prospects for the New Criminal Justice System
There are certainly real prospects for Mexico’s 2008 judicial sector reforms to be successful. Proponents of Mexico’s judicial sector reforms point to seemingly successful transitions from inquisitorial to accusatory systems elsewhere in Latin America, most notably Chile.74 Indeed, the Mexican government has established an international agreement with the government of Chile to share experiences and training in order to facilitate Mexico’s transition to the adversarial model of criminal procedure. The experience of Chile appears to suggest that the use of adversarial trial proceedings and alternative sentencing measures reduces paperwork, increases efficiency, and helps to eliminate case backlogs by concentrating procedures in a way that facilitates judicial decisions. Meanwhile, although the ideals of security and liberty are often perceived to be in tension with one another, an emphasis on guaranteeing the rights of both crime victims and suspects ultimately strengthens the rule of law. That is, a rights-based approach compels the state not only to defend the security of the public, but also compels state actors themselves to respect the law in their treatment of individuals.
