Judicial Protection of Rights. Comparing Subnational Public Defender's Offices in Mexico

• In Event: Judicial Politics in Latin America. Challenges for Rights Protection

Abstract

Mexico has ratified several international human rights treaties that oblige the country and its institutions to protect them. The Mexican Supreme Court recently delivered a decision allowing all judges in the country to discard national laws that do not conform to international treaties ratified by Mexico (conventionality review). Additionally, since 1990s, several institutions of the justice-sector have been reformed in order to advance the rule of law. Notwithstanding, these reforms have touched these institutions at the subnational level. As a matter of fact, we can talk about the existence of ‘authoritarian judicial enclaves’, that is, judicial institutions that operate in the same conditions as during the authoritarian regime. This is the case of several states’ public defender offices. These institutions are in charge of providing access to justice to those individuals that cannot pay a lawyer. If public defense attorneys are the channel to justice for the poor, to what extent are they a channel to expand the judicial protection of rights? What explains public defense attorneys’ involvement in the protection of human rights? In this work I follow a qualitative comparative methodology to explore the variation in the protection of human rights in public defender offices at the sub-national (state) level. I use interviews with public defenders to shape my argument regarding the factors that favor when public defenders turn into a channel for the judicial protection of human rights. I contend that both institutional setting (professionalization) and societal factors (rule and role internalization) contribute to explain why defenders engage in the task of making the judicial system respond to human rights claims.

Author

• Azul A Aguiar-Aguilar, ITESO