The Horizons of Justice in Mexico. On the effective enforcement of the law

The World Justice Project is an international organization that promotes effective law enforcement around the world. Annually, it prepares a Rule of Law Index that allows it to conclude the following: 1) If the effective application of the law is ensured, human rights are strengthened. 2) When the law is applied, impunity is reduced. 3) When the effectiveness of the law prevails in a society, poverty and inequality decrease. In addition, public and private conflicts are solved, which contributes to the daily coexistence of people.

So, we can ask ourselves: what does it mean that the law is “effectively” applied? Interest in effective law goes back, in Western culture, to ancient literature. We can remember Hesiod, who meditated on the imperfection of “human” justice in the story of the sparrowhawk and the nightingale, in which he allows us to feel the suffering of those who cry out for justice without an answer. When the nightingale inquiries about the injustice of his captor, the hawk turns to him: “Miserable you, what is your whining about?” 

The first quality of an effectively applied law is that the strong are confronted. In other words, the actions of the unjust have consequences. An effectively applied law protects (and does not abandon) the weak and, on the other hand, confronts those who intend to bend the law. 

We can recognize a second condition of effective law with Aeschylus, who was interested in answering whether justice is accessible to people or not. In The Eumenides Aeschylus tests us when we accompany Orestes, who murders his mother, Clytemnestra, to avenge the death of his father, Agamemnon, killed by her. In the lines of the choir of The Eumenides, statements can be read that are still valid, especially in a country like Mexico: “If the cause of this parricide wins his crime, new laws will soon have upset the order of the world…” A law effectively applied has as its third characteristic its universal application. When the law is not applied or is done discretionally, an illegal order prevails over legality. It is a legal schizophrenia that shelters injustice. Aeschylus has been warning us for centuries about the high cost we must face when the law bends: to suffer a social order organized not by nightingales, but by sparrowhawks. 

We find a fourth characteristic of the effective law in Western classical literature in Sophocles, more specifically in Antigone, where the dilemma is between what the law indicates and the sense of universal justice that many times may not be recognized by the norm. 

A fifth component of the effectively applied law is that it is organized around principles, being an essential function of every judge not to be guided by the fulfillment of rigid normative assumptions, as a consideration to bring the law closer to a universal experience of justice. Otherwise, those gaps that impunity opens are covered by illegality to the extent that, whoever can pronounce the law, avoids with his actions bringing justice to the weak. 

In the Index of the State of Law report in Mexico 2020-2021, prepared by World Justice Project, we find horizons of government action in an international logic to favor an effectively applied law in the country: 

1. In our country, the new institutions of procurement, administration, and enforcement of justice continue to have the same practices, which is why, as it happens with Hesiod’s nightingale, crying out for justice in Mexico does not translate into the protection of the law. 
2. We lack quality in the administration and delivery of justice: as Aeschylus warned us, these areas of opportunity are supplied by the illegality that fills the gaps caused by the non-application of the law. 
3. An inefficient and ineffective rule of law translates into the loss of investment opportunities, trade, knowledge creation and increased quality of life. The cost of impunity is greater poverty, low economic growth, deterioration of purchasing power, low investment in science, infrastructure and knowledge. 

Impunity is an international problem and should not be thought of only in national terms. Without a universally applied law we cannot hope to enjoy the benefits of trade, science and investment in the country. 

The horizons of justice in Mexico are diverse. However, the Index of the Rule of Law in Mexico 2020-2021 makes clear the setbacks that we have had from 2020 to 2021 (without considering the three previous reports). We must enroll them in a broader public and government agenda, oriented in favor of the country, not of strong people who bend the law to the detriment of the weak. A society organized by law, in which this is a means to achieve a broader goal: to guarantee access to justice in Mexico. 

The Rule of Law Index in Mexico 2020-2021, prepared by the World Justice Project, is a quantitative analysis of eight study variables: limits to government power; absence of corruption; open government; fundamental rights; order and security; regulatory compliance; civil justice, and criminal justice. 

The quantification of numerous sub-variables for each of the above gives a number between zero and one, where the unit represents the greatest adherence to the rule of law. The value for Mexico is not very encouraging: 0.40. 

The information can be found on the interactive microsite accessible from World Justice Project Mexico’s portal: https://worldjusticeproject.mx/indice-de-estado-de- Derecho-en-mexico-2020-2021/

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