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Judicial Reform as Insurance Policy: Mexico in the 1990s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Jodi Finkel
Jodi Finkel*
Affiliation:
Loyola Marymount University
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Abstract

After seven decades of Mexican judicial subordination, President Ernesto Zedillo in 1994 introduced judicial reforms that increased the independence and judicial review powers of the judicial branch. The willful creation of a judiciary capable of checking the power of the president and the ruling PRI appears to counter political logic; but it makes sense as a political “insurance policy” to protect the ruling party from its rivals. PRI politicians, newly unable to control political outcomes at state and local levels and unsure if they would continue to dominate the national government in the future, opted to empower the Mexican Supreme Court as a hedge against the loss of office. This article argues that the likelihood of the reforms' producing an empowered judiciary increases as the ruling party's probability of reelection declines.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , Spring 2005 , pp. 87 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 2005

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