Luis Carlos Ugalde and Paulina Creuheras review the 2024 reform that made Mexico’s Supreme Court justices, federal judges and the members of a new Judicial Discipline Tribunal subject to popular election, and that dismantled the career judiciary. Turnout in the June 2025 vote was 12.9 percent, and the National Electoral Institute found that winning candidates …
JURIST reports in April 2026 that UN Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor has issued a sharp warning that Mexico continues to fail in protecting human rights defenders and the lawyers who represent them, despite formal protective programs. Front Line Defenders ranked Mexico second worldwide in killings of human rights defenders in 2024, with at least 32 …
This article examines the role of the Supreme Court in the development of the Mexican political system. The judiciary provided an important source of regime legitimation, as it allowed for the consolidation of a state of legality and a claim to constitutional rule of law, at least in discourse. However, the judiciary was in effect …
Gamboa, Laura; García-Holgado, Benjamín; & González-Ocantos, Ezequiel. Courts against backsliding: Lessons from Latin America. Law & Policy 46(4): 358–379 (2024). Across Latin America’s recent wave of democratic erosion, courts have often been portrayed as victims of executive encroachment or as instruments weaponized by autocrats. This article develops a different analytical frame by highlighting cases in …
Aguilar, A. (2012). Institutional changes in the public prosecutor’s office: The cases of Mexico, Chile and Brazil. Mexican law review, 4(2), 261-290. Given the critical role played by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the criminal justice system, the reform of its powers and underlying framework is fundamental in enhancing the rule of law and democracy. …
Julio Ríos-Figueroa, Paloma Aguilar, “Justice Institutions in Autocracies: A Framework for Analysis.” Democratization, vol. 25, no. 1 (2017): 1–18. Summary: What role do justice institutions play in autocracies? The authors bring together the literatures on authoritarian political institutions and on judicial politics to create a framework to answer this question. They start from the premise …
Silva Inclán Oseguera, “Judicial Reform in Mexico: Political Insurance or the Search for Political Legitimacy?” Political Research Quarterly, vol. 62, no. 4 (2009): pp. 753-766. Summary: Judicial reform presents a paradox: What makes governing elites decide to grant power to an autonomous judiciary that will eventually curtail their own powers? The engagement of governing elites in …
Azul A. Aguiar Aguilar, Rodrigo Castro Cornejo, Alejandro Monsiváis-Carrillo, “Is Mexico at the Gates of Authoritarianism?” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 36, no.1 (2025): 50-64. Summary: Mexico might be on the verge of becoming one of the latest additions to the list of competitive authoritarian regimes. By the end of the term of President Andrés Manuel …
Tamir Moustafa. “The Politics of Domination: Law and Resistance in Authoritarian States,” Chapter. In The Struggle for Constitutional Power: Law, Politics, and Economic Development in Egypt. 19–56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Summary: The thought of judicial institutions in authoritarian states typically conjures up the image of state security courts with no standards of due process, handpicked …