Anthony W. Pereira “Explaining Judicial Reform Outcomes in New Democracies: The Importance of Authoritarian Legalism in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.” Human Rights Review, vol. 4, no. 3 (2003): 3-16.
This article investigates how the legacies of authoritarian legal systems influence the capacity of attorneys to drive judicial reform in emerging democracies, with case studies from Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. It highlights how the professional and political space available to lawyers is deeply shaped by how prior regimes engaged with the law and the judiciary. In Brazil, the military regime’s legalistic but non-repressive approach produced a legal profession that was incorporated into the authoritarian order, leaving post-transition attorneys with limited momentum or mandate for reform. In contrast, Argentina’s military largely bypassed the legal system, marginalizing lawyers and judges, which later spurred a fragmented and retrospective wave of legal activism after democratization. Chile’s case reveals that when an authoritarian regime combines repression with a strong legal framework, it paradoxically leaves behind institutions that reform-minded lawyers can later leverage. The article ultimately suggests that attorneys are more effective agents of legal change in backsliding or post-authoritarian contexts when they inherit legal systems that, however repressive, still maintained legal coherence and professional autonomy.