Judicial Politics in Mexico

Judicial Politics in Mexico
Author: Andrea Castagnola
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2016-11-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1315520591

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After more than seventy years of uninterrupted authoritarian government headed by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), Mexico formally began the transition to democracy in 2000. Unlike most other new democracies in Latin America, no special Constitutional Court was set up, nor was there any designated bench of the Supreme Court for constitutional adjudication. Instead, the judiciary saw its powers expand incrementally. Under this new context inevitable questions emerged: How have the justices interpreted the constitution? What is the relation of the court with the other political institutions? How much autonomy do justices display in their decisions? Has the court considered the necessary adjustments to face the challenges of democracy? It has become essential in studying the new role of the Supreme Court to obtain a more accurate and detailed diagnosis of the performances of its justices in this new political environment. Through critical review of relevant debates and using original data sets to empirically analyze the way justices voted on the three main means of constitutional control from 2000 through 2011, leading legal scholars provide a thoughtful and much needed new interpretation of the role the judiciary plays in a country’s transition to democracy This book is designed for graduate courses in law and courts, judicial politics, comparative judicial politics, Latin American institutions, and transitions to democracy. This book will equip scholars and students with the knowledge required to understand the importance of the independence of the judiciary in the transition to democracy.

Legal Culture, Sociopolitical Origins and Professional Careers of Judges in Mexico

Legal Culture, Sociopolitical Origins and Professional Careers of Judges in Mexico
Author: Azul A. Aguiar Aguilar
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2024
Genre: Judges
ISBN: 303152909X

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Zusammenfassung: Her research makes an important methodological contribution to exploring legal culture and to comparative, ideational studies of judicial behavior. --Rachel Sieder, CIESAS, Mexico City. This rich sociolegal analysis is a welcome addition to the judicial and legal scholarship in Mexico and beyond. --Julio Ríos Figueroa, ITAM. This book explores the careers, professional trajectories and legal cultures of judges in the federal judiciary in Mexico. So far, there has been limited research on internal factors contributing to the understanding of judicial power dynamics in Mexico and other Latin American countries at large; this Work fills an important gap in the literature through its empirical investigation of internal legal cultures and judicial norms, offering new data, measurement strategies,and insights into the interactions between law, politics, norms, legal culture(s), as well as judicial behavior. Utilising an original survey, the chapters analyse judicial conceptualizations of role norms, legal cultures, proclivities for judicial activism, and judicial behavior. In so doing, this book contributes to understanding of underlying key internal factors of judicial activism or restraint, in turn moving forward the debate that seeks to explain judicial behavior reliant on internal and ideational perspectives. Complementing limited but existing studies of judicial politics in Mexico through its analysis of judges beyond those that sit at the Supreme Court, this book will be of particular interest to Latin-American judicial politics scholars due to its focus on the judicial power from internal perspectives as well as sub-national judges, filling a void in the literature vis-à-vis the study of courts in Latin America. This Work was originally written in Spanish, and the translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content. Azul A. Aguiar Aguilar is Professor of political science in the Department of Sociopolitical and Legal Studies at ITESO, the Jesuit University of Guadalajara, Mexico. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Florence, Italy. She teaches courses of political science, judicial politics and theories of democracy in undergraduate and graduate programs at ITESO and the University of Guadalajara. Her research interests include comparative judicial politics and democratization processes. Professor Aguiar has edited books and published several articles in peer review journals about democracy, courts, and justice-sector institutions. She has been distinguished as a member of the National Researchers System in Mexico

Adjudicating Politics

Adjudicating Politics
Author: Omar Mondragon-Lopez
Publisher:
Total Pages: 140
Release: 2002
Genre: Courts
ISBN:

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Judicial Power and Strategic Communication in Mexico

Judicial Power and Strategic Communication in Mexico
Author: Jeffrey K. Staton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2010-03-22
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0521195217

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Although they are not directly accountable to voters, constitutional court judges communicate with the general public through the media. In Judicial Power and Strategic Communication in Mexico, Jeffrey K. Staton argues that constitutional courts develop public relations strategies in order to increase the transparency of judicial behavior and promote judicial legitimacy. Yet, in some political contexts there can be a tension between transparency and legitimacy, and for this reason, courts cannot necessarily advance both conditions simultaneously. The argument is tested via an analysis of the Mexican Supreme Court during Mexico's recent transition to democracy, and also through a cross-national analysis of public perceptions of judicial legitimacy. The results demonstrate that judges can be active participants in the construction of their own power. More broadly, the study develops a positive political theory of institutions, which highlights the connections between democratization and the rule of law.

Judicial Reform as Political Insurance

Judicial Reform as Political Insurance
Author: Jodi S. Finkel
Publisher:
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN:

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Jodi S. Finkel examines judicial reforms leading to increased judicial independence and authority in three Latin American countries: Argentina, Mexico, and Peru.

Judicial Review in Mexico

Judicial Review in Mexico
Author: Richard D. Baker
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2015-01-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1477305653

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The amparo suit is a Mexican legal institution similar in its effects to such Anglo-American procedures as habeas corpus, error, and the various forms of injunctive relief. It has undergone a long evolution since it was incorporated into the Constitution of 1857. Today, its principal purpose is to protect private individuals in the enjoyment of the rights guaranteed by the first twenty-nine articles of the Constitution. Mexico after its independence produced many constitutions. One of the earliest problems was to find an adequate means of defending the Constitution against ill-founded interpretations of its precepts. Like the United States, Mexico has developed a system of constitutional defense in which the judiciary is the supreme interpreter of what this document means. Unlike the United States Supreme Court, however, the Mexican Supreme Court has not been innovative in its decisions or contradicted the administration on major policy decisions. This difference must be attributed to the civil law system of Mexico as well as to the political climate. The first part of Richard D. Baker’s book describes the historical background of amparo and other methods of constitutional defense in Mexico. The three men most closely associated with creating a judicial form of constitutional defense in Mexico were Manuel Crescencio Rejón, José Fernando Ramírez, and Mariano Otero. Their own writings indicate that the immediate source of amparo must be found in the American institution of judicial review that was transmitted to Mexicans through Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. The second part is an exposition of the workings of the amparo suit in the twentieth century and the constitutional and statutory provisions affecting it. Since 1857, when it was incorporated into article 102 of the Constitution, the amparo suit has evolved into a highly complex institution performing three functions: the defense of the civil liberties enumerated in the first twenty-nine articles of the Constitution, the determination of the constitutionality of federal and state legislation, and cassation. The Supreme Court is primarily limited to defending civil liberties through the amparo suit; it remains less innovative and more restricted than the United States system of judicial review, especially in the effect of its judgments on political agencies. Baker’s study is the first one in English dealing with this subject and is one of the most extensive in any language. It should be welcome as a valuable tool to all students of Mexican law, history, and political thought.

Matters of Justice

Matters of Justice
Author: Helga Baitenmann
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2020-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1496220021

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After the fall of the Porfirio Díaz regime, pueblo representatives sent hundreds of petitions to Pres. Francisco I. Madero, demanding that the executive branch of government assume the judiciary’s control over their unresolved lawsuits against landowners, local bosses, and other villages. The Madero administration tried to use existing laws to settle land conflicts but always stopped short of invading judicial authority. In contrast, the two main agrarian reform programs undertaken in revolutionary Mexico—those implemented by Emiliano Zapata and Venustiano Carranza—subordinated the judiciary to the executive branch and thereby reshaped the postrevolutionary state with the support of villagers, who actively sided with one branch of government over another. In Matters of Justice Helga Baitenmann offers the first detailed account of the Zapatista and Carrancista agrarian reform programs as they were implemented in practice at the local level and then reconfigured in response to unanticipated inter- and intravillage conflicts. Ultimately, the Zapatista land reform, which sought to redistribute land throughout the country, remained an unfulfilled utopia. In contrast, Carrancista laws, intended to resolve quickly an urgent problem in a time of war, had lasting effects on the legal rights of millions of land beneficiaries and accidentally became the pillar of a program that redistributed about half the national territory.

The Oxford Handbook of Mexican Politics

The Oxford Handbook of Mexican Politics
Author: Roderic Ai Camp
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2012-01-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0199703620

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Since achieving independence from Spain and establishing its first constitution in 1824, Mexico has experienced numerous political upheavals. The country's long and turbulent journey toward democratic, representative government has been marked by a tension between centralized, autocratic governments (historically depicted as a legacy of colonial institutions) and federalist structures. The years since Mexico's independence have seen a major violent social revolution, years of authoritarian rule, and, finally, in the past two decades, the introduction of a fair and democratic electoral process. Over the course of the thirty-one essays in The Oxford Handbook of Mexican Politics some of the world's leading scholars of Mexico will provide a comprehensive view of the remarkable transformation of the nation's political system to a democratic model. In turn they will assess the most influential institutions, actors, policies and issues in its current evolution toward democratic consolidation. Following an introduction by Roderic Ai Camp, sections will explore the current state of Mexico's political development; transformative political institutions; the changing roles of the military, big business, organized labor, and the national political elite; new political actors including the news media, indigenous movements, women, and drug traffickers; electoral politics; demographics and political attitudes; and policy issues.

Courts in Latin America

Courts in Latin America
Author: Gretchen Helmke
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2011-01-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1139497162

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To what extent do courts in Latin America protect individual rights and limit governments? This volume answers these fundamental questions by bringing together today's leading scholars of judicial politics. Drawing on examples from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica and Bolivia, the authors demonstrate that there is widespread variation in the performance of Latin America's constitutional courts. In accounting for this variation, the contributors push forward ongoing debates about what motivates judges; whether institutions, partisan politics and public support shape inter-branch relations; and the importance of judicial attitudes and legal culture. The authors deploy a range of methods, including qualitative case studies, paired country comparisons, statistical analysis and game theory.