The June 11, 2011, constitutional reform requires all the country's authorities to respect and recognize human rights under the Constitution and international treaties signed by Mexico. It further established that judges have the obligation to apply a principle of interpretation of legal rules known as pro homine, or pro person [i.e., where personal rights have priority].
MV Note: Article One of the Mexican Constitution states: "Laws relating to human rights will be interpreted in conformance with this Constitution and with international treaties, at all times awarding persons the broadest protection."However, in practice, most judges continue choosing to administer justice by applying only the Constitution and its secondary laws, without studying the catalog of human rights under international law.
Official statistical data collected by the Federal Judiciary, to which La Jornada had access, indicate that in 2015 alone, 7,350 petitions for appeal were filed countrywide in all kinds of court cases (amparo [protection, like an injunction], criminal, environmental, civil , labor, administrative [i.e., involving government operation], agrarian and commercial, among others). Of those, 93 percent derived from the disagreement of litigants with some ruling by the district [first level] court, because the judges did not comply with their constitutional obligation (Article One of the Constitution) to search for and analyze the jurisprudential criteria of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights regarding fundamental guarantees.
According to lawyers consulted, most federal judges do not respect the catalog of fundamental rights contained in international treaties that are not provided for in the Mexican Constitution. Technically, it is an obligation of the judges to apply the clause on agreed interpretation and the principle of conventionality of laws.
MV Note: In 2006 there was a landmark ruling by the Inter-American Court regarding judicial processes and payment of reparations in cases involving grave and systematic human rights violations. José Luis Caballero Ochoa, La cláusula de interpretación conforme y el principio pro persona (Article 1, Paragraph 2, of the Constitution), p. 105.
The lawyers said that if federal judges do not study international treaties, the problem is even worse in the state courts, since most state court judges stick with the strict application of state laws ...
Attorney Eduardo Ferrer, expert in international human rights law, said,
Attorney Eduardo Ferrer, expert in international human rights law, said,
"It's a national disgrace that a majority of our federal judges do not apply criteria of jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (CIDH). It is most likely they don't even know [those criteria exist]."
Martin Millan, another Mexican lawyer with extensive human rights experience, stated:
"If this trend continues, then it is very likely that in about five years the Inter-American Human Rights Commission will be issuing a countless number of new convictions against the Mexican State, given the failure of our judges to fulfill their obligation to respect human rights."Spanish original