Concanaco Servytur – Forum 8: Ombudsman and Law Practice Association

Tuesday, August 6, 2024

Saltillo

National Dialogues on Judicial Reform

Forum 8: Ombudsman and Law Practice Association

Ricardo Monreal (President of the Senate Political Coordination Council): At present, the evolution of the performance of the Public Defender’s Office, at the local and federal levels, is not very encouraging, as various surveys show that people deprived of their liberty resort to this service and evaluate it negatively in about 80 percent of those surveyed. We do not realize that defense at the federal and local level has become obsolete; federal and local defense offices are overloaded and overwhelmed by the backlog of work. It is important that the reform of the judiciary be accompanied by a modification of the public ministry or the justice system. He emphasized that improving the Court of Grievances aims to guarantee citizens’ rights, strengthen governance and transparency, enhance professionalism and access to justice; all this, to contribute to a more just, transparent and participatory society.

Miguel Felipe Merry Ayub (President of the Supreme Court of Justice and Judicial Council of the Judicial Power of the State of Coahuila): For us, the vision of reform is about being close to the people and there is no closer space that we can have in the judiciary, which must be precisely the Public Defender’s Office or the People’s Defense or whatever you can call it. The Ombudsman’s Office, because at the national level there are only 6 Public Ombudsman’s Offices that are part of the judiciary, while the other 26 belong to the executive. Because we do not integrate mediation into the Public Defender’s Offices, because we do not create a service plan for the people and from there how many cases go to the Public Defender’s Office, so we will create a simpler plan for the people through mediation as a means of conflict resolution.

Ignacio Mir (Morena GP Coordinator): The reform initiative does not consider amending Article 20 of the Constitution, the Office of the Public Defender mentioned by the President of the Court, this issue to include it in a comprehensive review of the entire procurement and management system in the country and to comply with the rights of all Mexicans. In the coming days, we will be able to show the first lines of the amendments to the initiative, in several central aspects that I can foresee: first, the formation of the Permanent Committee of the Press and the new composition and implementation of the procedures for the election of members, so that the eligibility criteria are guaranteed and the requirements are met so that through the Technical Committee the suitability of the most qualified and most prepared is determined. Second, the issue of gradualism and swing in the democratic selection process will be respected and also the ability to guarantee the acquired rights of all workers and the funds of the trust funds, since they are the right of the workers.

Juan Ramiro Robledo (Chairman of the Constitutional Points Committee): This issue and the one that will be discussed in Culiacán are not part of the central proposal for judicial reform, they have been added to give a complete outline of the justice system. First, there cannot be a justice system that works without someone to lead it; the process cannot be carried out without defenders and without defendants, which the public defenders lack. On the other hand, there are paid lawyers and those who introduce bad practices into the judicial process, but the justice system can work very well with good lawyers. The other issue touches on another fundamental issue: human rights.

Ricardo Antonio Silva (Coordinator of the Constitutional Law Committee of the National Bar Association): Three problems seem to be central to the issue of this justice system, namely the importance of delays and delays in resolving disputes, formalities that prevent the effective resolution of disputes, and the distance between judicial officials and citizens. Although it is pointed out that the origin of the problem is the judges, it seems to me that this is a wrong point of view, since the deterioration of the justice system depends on various factors that have not been properly analyzed and these factors must be taken into account. To an appropriate, effective and comprehensive reform. There is a great responsibility in preparing public and private lawyers and there is also a great scope for continuous training in the profession. We must be specific that there is a gap in terms of monitoring the profession and that professional associations do not have sufficient tools for regulation and the ability to evaluate and encourage the real practice of the profession.

Sandra Lucia Rodriguez (Professor at the Autonomous University of Coahuila): The path of advocacy forces us to see the extreme disparity between those who defend a cause and the resources they have. But the journey of advocacy has not been without challenges. The transition between 1994 and 2011, while promising, has revealed a network of delays that persist. At the national level, reports highlight the importance of the public defender model, which prioritizes independence and impartiality. The lack of training leads to operational problems such as a lack of staff to handle matters, thus reducing the effectiveness of the workload.

Tasia Cruz Barcero (Circuit Judge and Director of the Federal Institute of Public Defenders): The development of a discourse that erodes people’s confidence in the courts, which leads to the elimination of the great value of fundamental constitutional principles, such as legality, due process, impartiality, separation of judges and prosecutors, and the presumption of innocence, is worrisome. Freedom and proportionality of punishments. The proposals are as follows: Issuing a general law on public defenders that harmonizes the public defense services in criminal matters and in all other matters, and defines the powers and forms of coordination between the Federation and the federal entities. That this law guarantees the technical and administrative independence currently enjoyed by the Federal Institute of Public Defenders and extends this guarantee to local lawyers, or the appointment of public defenders in the judicial authorities or their consideration as self-employed bodies, to ensure the allocation of the necessary budgetary allocations to comply with salary parity and the presence of a sufficient number of employees who meet high quality and service standards, and to organize the professional civil service as a mechanism for entry and continuity, among others.

Juan Guillermo Avila (Mexican Bar Association Representative): Mandatory membership is something that we have been constantly trying to promote in the Bar Association and other bar associations, even the associations that include several bar associations have proposed a general law regulating the legal profession. The practice of law has several professions such as notaries, brokers, the function of the judiciary, all of them are organized, but the people who turn to them for help are not organized, they have no base or limits of restrictions to know how far we should act. In reforming the administration of justice, we can only think of a law regulating the legal profession, we must set limits, but we must also have rights to be within the state of law, that is why membership is also integrated. The legal profession so that all law graduates can.

Diana Berenice Lopez Gomez (Judicial Worker): We feel that they are ignoring the union workers to reform our institution, and we consider that two months to approve a reform of this importance is too little time, and we also believe that they are not giving us the opportunity to express the feelings of the workers, the union leaders were invited to our most important institution, but we are the ones who are upset by the budget cuts, and we are angry that the Palestinian Journalists Union and the Public Prosecution Offices are being put in the same bag, and their reform has no real meaning. Separation, it has no real study of what the public prosecutions do, what the local judiciary does, what the federal judiciary does. We do not want the judicial profession to end. We want them to include us and listen to us, it is not about benefits, it is about professionalism. We do not want appointed judges

José Alfonso Montalvo (Judge and Federal Justice Counsel): What we need is a reform that strengthens internal organizations such as the Public Defender’s Office to bring justice closer to the people. What we need is to have a sufficient and secure budget to expand and train our staff of public defenders and legal advisors to serve first and foremost the users of the accused persons. Because when citizens have access to free and competent public defenders, citizens’ confidence in the justice system is strengthened, equality before the law is enhanced, and everyone is guaranteed adequate legal representation.

Rogelio Rodriguez Garduño (Legal Analyst): It is not mandatory membership, because to achieve this we must have schools and bars that must implement strict control. It is proposed that we open legal specialties and the Mexican State must take responsibility for implementing this control and issuing certificates for each specialty.

Olmo Guerrero Martinez (Mexican Bar Association): We have to define the principles that justify the reform. The principles or postulates that define how to improve justice, achieve independence, democratize justice and achieve its independence are the guiding principles of the reform proposal. We are looking for a complex solution to something that we must improve, and we are seeking to reform the judiciary, but the issue of public prosecutors remains forgotten in this discussion, and until they enter the discussion, we cannot have half a solution. Let us talk about the judicial profession and its elimination is not ideal. Of course, regarding the issue of membership, yes, but until the conditions of membership are guaranteed, membership is an indirect means of subjecting applicants to professional practice.

José Guadalupe Mendez de Lira (Judicial Agent): The Zacatecas Workers’ Union rejects the presidential initiative, because it starts from the wrong premises to continue. The workers are here out of emotion, out of love for the institution, because it hurts us that they make us see ourselves as corrupt, that they do not know our work to achieve social justice and dignity for Mexicans, that they do not see that we are ready people. We defend the right to be judges or investigating judges through the judicial profession. Listen to the labor base and all the experts.

Celia Maya Garcia (Federal Legal Counsel): The proposed reform does not contradict, but on the contrary, reinforces the guiding principle of separation of powers and independence of the judiciary. The democratization of access to judicial office supports the sovereign freedom of the people to appoint judges, limits the permanence of judicial positions so that the natural alternative works, thus avoiding the generation of spaces of influence, privileges and corruption, and prohibits impunity for bad judicial officers by establishing an agency responsible for punishing deviations from public, illegal and unethical behavior, thus ensuring full compliance with the legal liability system for judicial officers.

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