Judicial Politics in Mexico: The Supreme Court and the Transition to Democracy by Andrea Castagnola & Saul Lopez Noriega

Author:Andrea Castagnola & Saul Lopez Noriega [Castagnola, Andrea & Noriega, Saul Lopez]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138697829
Google: 4RARkAEACAAJ
Goodreads: 29454720
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-10-29T00:00:00+00:00

V Conclusions

Are Mexican justices true mediators of conflicts between political powers? To answer this question it is important to notice that the type of constitutional control—constitutional action or constitutional controversy—largely conditions justices’ judicial behavior. Indeed, according to findings in Section IV justices vote differently depending on whether they are voting on a controversy or an action. On average, justices are more likely to vote unconstitutionally on actions than on controversies. This finding suggests that the institutional context in which justices operate plays a significant role. More precisely, as previously argued, the institutional design of each mean of constitutional control has an effect on the type of justices’ argument, the effect of judgments, and the type of actors entitled to use each of these forms of constitutional control.

The econometric analysis of Supreme Court rulings reveals that under a context of institutional stability and divided government Mexican justices behave differently, as the literature would suggest.23 Some authors (Chávez 2004a; Helmke 2005; Iaryczower et al. 2002; Larkins 1996; Magaloni and Sánchez 2006; Ríos-Figueroa 2007; Sánchez et al. 2011) argue that in new democracies with insecure institutional contexts, justices would vote strategically by ruling in favor of the government as a way to circumvent reprisals. The Mexican case shows that in the opposite political scenario justices would also vote in favor of the ruling government. The chapter shows that the probability of a justice voting against the PAN, both in actions and controversies, is reduced when that party is either the plaintiff or the defendant. How can we explain this finding? Or in other words, why in the first two presidential administrations of the PAN have justices been so deferential to that political party at the moment of resolving conflicts between powers?

One explanation is that justices did not have enough time to assimilate the new political scenario of the country. Even though since 2000 justices have enjoyed more independence and autonomy than during the PRI era, they still remain cautious of their relationship with the ruling party (especially justices appointed during the PRI administration). The legacy of the PRI’s conception about the executive–court relations is still fresh among the members of the judiciary power. Even though scholars like Casar (2013) would argue that such fears have no fundamental basis under this new fragmented political scenario (because the president would need the support of Congress to effect justices’ independence, such as limiting the power of judicial review or reducing the number of sitting justices), the experience of other Latin American countries of strong manipulation of the judiciary (as in the cases of Bolivia and El Salvador) can make justices doubt their new independence.

A second explanation is the persistence of an unbalanced power culture within the political actors. Evidently, the hegemony of the PRI during more than seven decades cannot be dismantled from one day to another, especially if the country has very similar institutional settings and actors. Even though the Supreme Court gained independence after 1994, this did not correspond with a change in the conception of the other political actors.

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