The Forgotten Lucha Legal in Revolutionary Cuba (1952-1959): Strategic Litigation, Petitions, and Judicial Activism

• In Event: The State and the Practice of Law

Abstract

This article examines the role of law in anti-authoritarian resistance in Cuba from Fulgencio Batista’s 1952 coup to the revolutionary victory of 1959. Drawing on archival research in Havana’s Urgency Court records, Supreme Court decisions, memoirs, testimonios, and the press, it reconstructs a sustained lucha legal in which opposition actors mobilized courts, legal procedures, and constitutional language against dictatorship. Focusing on constitutional litigation, court petitions, and judicial activism, the article shows that, despite limited direct victories, legal mobilization generated significant indirect effects by articulating republican legality, exposing repression, and sustaining opposition coordination under authoritarian rule. In the current context of growing authoritarianism worldwide, the study complements our understanding of social movements by demonstrating the role of legal action in broader resistance efforts.

Author

• Amalia Perez Martin, California State University-Sacramento