Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Judicial reform in Mexico

The PRI will again control the presidency in Mexico, but it might have competition not only from the legislature, but also the judciary.

Mexican court: Military law is unconstitutional

Mexico's Supreme Court on Tuesday declared unconstitutional a key portion of a military law that has broadened the influence of military courts and angered civilian victims seeking justice.

The 8-2 ruling said a provision of the Code of Military Justice that claims authority over all crimes committed by soldiers on duty is incompatible with Mexico's constitution. The ruling said it violates a federal law stipulating that military courts should not expand their scope over civilians affected by a case…

Rights groups and Mexican news media obtained records that showed military prosecutors opened nearly 5,000 investigations into alleged violations of human rights between 2007 and April 2012, but only 38 service members were convicted and sentenced. The number of complaints has increased since President Felipe Calderon deployed tens of thousands of soldiers to crack down on drug traffickers…

"This is the most important step the Supreme Court has ever taken toward ending the longstanding practice of sending abuses by soldiers to military courts," said Nik Steinberg, the Mexico and Cuba researcher of Human Rights Watch…

In Mexico, five separate rulings in different cases are required to set a broad precedent beyond the individual cases. The Supreme Court recently issued a ruling in another case holding that when the victim of an alleged crime is a civilian, an ordinary judge should oversee the case, and it still has to rule on 27 other cases involving the military.