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.

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Labels: judiciary, Mexico, rule-of-law, separation of powers

Saturday, October 03, 2009

The UK's new supreme court

As a follow-up to the earlier post about the new supreme court, Karmin Tomlinson pointed out this interveiw with Lord Vance, one of Parliament's Law Lords. It was done last July as the Law Lords were about to announce their final judgments. It might help explain the changes to your students.

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Labels: judiciary, separation of powers, UK

Thursday, October 01, 2009

A UK Supreme Court from today

1 October 2009 marks a defining moment in the constitutional history of the United Kingdom: transferring judicial authority away from the House of Lords, and creating a Supreme Court for the United Kingdom.

The Supreme Court’s 12 Justices will maintain the highest standards set by the Appellate Committee, but will now be explicitly separate from both Government and Parliament.

The Court will hear appeals on arguable points of law of the greatest public importance, for the whole of the United Kingdom in civil cases, and for England, Wales and Northern Ireland in criminal cases

Occasionally, The Court will be called upon to interpret European law and the European Convention on Human Rights as they relate to our domestic laws.

If human rights principles seem to have been breached, it may be possible to appeal to the European Court after all avenues of appeal in the United Kingdom have been exhausted, or The Supreme Court has no jurisdiction in this particular case.

Learn more details about the Constitutional Reform Act of 2005.

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Labels: judiciary, separation of powers, UK