Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis, in which sitting President Manuel Zelaya was captured from the Presidential Palace and flown to Costa Rica under the cover of night, illuminated the danger of entrenched and eternity clauses in fledgling democracies. This article discusses the way such clauses have been used in the past, identifying three general categories of historical eternity clauses. These categories include clauses that address the character of the government, the spirit or principles of the constitutional regime and finally the character of the country. The article also discusses potential problems that arise when such clauses are written into Constitutions of transitional democratic regimes.

This article first provides a survey of recent Mexican banking history. It then analyzes the causes that led to the peso crisis (1995) and the banking crisis that came after as well as the government response, the bank bailout, and the role of international financial organizations. Regulatory reforms of the Mexican financial system are also discussed. These provide the background for comparative analysis with the financial crisis (2007-2009) that initiated in the United States of America. Both crises are compared and contrasted, both in terms of the causes leading to them and the regulatory responses by the governments. Finally, by studying the similarities and differences, lessons are drawn from both cases.

In recent years Mexico has experienced an increase in drug-related violence as the government seeks to eradicate organized criminal elements behind the drug trade. In order to accomplish this Mexico has passed major new criminal justice reforms, as well as to the military and police. In June 2008, the Constitution was amended to move the country’s criminal justice system closer to the accusatory (adversarial and oral) model most closely associated with common law systems, particularly that of the United States. Mexican officials hope that by making criminal justice a more transparent, participatory experience the system will be better equipped to handle the effects of the drug war. However, judicial reform is far from simple even under the most favorable circumstances, and presents an especially daunting challenge when undertaken within the context of escalating violence. While Mexico hopes these changes will help address the broader effects of cartel violence on society, observers of the process fear that the reforms will suffer from the traditional obstacles presented by the pursuit of justice in transitioning countries, such as corruption, lack of real independence for criminal justice actors and limited educational and financial resources. It remains to be seen whether the 2008 reforms will strike the right balance and help propel the country towards security, stability and a stronger Rule of Law.

Mexico faces intense rule of law challenges vis-à-vis society (crime, informal markets, etc.) and the state (corruption, human rights abuses, etc.). One factor linking these two dimensions is the lack of legitimacy. Mexicans rarely trust the law, governmental institutions, or their politicians. This essay explores some of the implications, dimensions and challenges of this aspect of the dominant Mexican political discourse. Following a brief discussion of the Mexican political culture as it relates to questions of legitimacy and the rule of law, I argue that these factors generate an underlying assumption of corruption, an anti-state and hence pro-society bias, and an ambiguous political situation, and, in turn, craft an environment feeding corruption, and non-systemic behavior. The essay concludes by highlighting not only the importance of establishing the legitimacy of the rule of law and the difficulties and challenges of doing so, but also the need to prioritize the application of the rule of law to the state and state officials based on a strategy of strengthening civil society.

This article examines the package of constitutional and legislative reforms approved in 2008 with the goal of improving the Mexican criminal justice system. These reforms included new criminal procedures (oral adversarial trials, alternative sentencing, and alternative dispute resolution mechanisms), stronger due process protections for the accused, police and prosecutorial reforms to strengthen public security, criminal investigations, and new measures to combat organized crime. The author explains the procedural and institutional changes involved in the reforms. He argues that, while there has been significant progress in several states, there are several challenges for judicial reform in Mexico over the short-term, medium-term, and longer term. These challenges include the need to better coordinate across branches of government to establish new regulations and statutes; the need to properly prepare a wide array of judicial sector personnel to implement the new system; the need to construct new physical infrastructure for live, video-recorded court proceedings; and the need to properly monitor and evaluate the performance of the new system.

This article studies Mexico’s evolution from a protected economy in the 1970s to the free market economy of today. It also presents the different political and economic stages of this process, as well as the important changes made to laws on foreign investment in preparing for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Mexico-European Union free trade agreement and other bilateral agreements on investment promotion and protection. This has also led Mexico to privatize its economy, its banks and telecommunications in particular. This article also explains the legal framework for this privatization and presents an outline on the possible opening of the electricity sector.

This note presents a survey of the main issues discussed in the literature on judicial legitimacy from a sociological perspective. It focuses on the factors that may affect the legitimacy of judicial organs, and in particular that can influence diffuse support for courts. It offers a theoretical framework for the analysis of the legitimacy of constitutional courts in Latin America. Based on the theoretical and empirical findings in the literature, the note argues that in order to increase their legitimacy, constitutional courts in Latin America should give special attention to questions of transparency and accountability in their procedures and decision-making.

Despite many and important changes that have taken place in Mexican society in recent decades, women still face several obstacles to enjoying their rights effectively. Discrimination due to gender stereotyping is one of these obstacles. According to psychological research, stereotyping is part of individuals’ cognition and socialization process, but it can be negative in certain circumstances. The main hypothesis of this article is that there is a lack of gender perspective and an inadequate application of international human rights standards by Collegiate Circuit Courts of the federal judicial branch in Mexico, since the use of gender stereotypes persists in the process of judicial argumentation. This situation prevents women from fully exercising their rights and constitutes a violation of International Human Rights Law. Therefore, the State, and specifically the federal judicial branch, should adopt the necessary measures to fulfill its international obligations.