Actions and strategies to democratize access to justice from Mexico were the theme of the first “AJA Conversation Cycle” event on October 14, 2021, streamed on the Justice Forum’s Youtube channel. The debate was held in Spanish and counted on the participation of Lucero Ibarra, researcher from the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE-Mexico), Marina Corrêa, researcher and PhD in Latin American Studies (UNAM), and the president of the Instituto de Investigación y Estudios en Cultura de Derechos Humanos (CULTURA DH), Rosy Laura Castellanos Mariano.
Marina Corrêa addressed some topics from her article published within the AJA project, “The challenges of access to justice and Indigenous peoples’ strategies before mega-projects in Mexico: between legal pluralism and the positivimo de combate”.
According to her, many obstacles are impeding the Indigenous populations to access the justice system’s services, such as the lack of institutions, lawyers, and interpreters close to their territories.
In this context, she highlighted the capacity that some populations have acquired to implement an alternative use of the law on their behalf along the lines of “positivismo de combate” by using the new rights included in the latest constitutional reform. Indigenous communities would also make an alternative use of the law in a broader sense by interpreting existing norms more favorably. A third use of the law is based on legal pluralism by accepting and articulating the existence of various legal systems in the same territory.
The researcher also presented similarities with Brazil, such as the use of the right to self consultation by Indigenous peoples in Mexico and the consultation protocols used by Indigenous ethnic groups in Brazil.
Lucero Ibarra brought about the concept of the right to autonomy and self-determination of the Indigenous peoples in Mexico, invisible to most of the legal community.
She also pointed out the high involvement of these groups in the social struggle against organized crime and institutional racism. She cited examples of governance frameworks created by some Indigenous communities to manage their own resources, and to protect their territories and ways of living. She also presented examples of interactions between Indigenous peoples, courts and state agencies to overcome legal obstacles.
The absence of transversality in the actions of the Mexican institutions to secure Indigenous Rights was also covered, as well as the lack of a legal pluralism perspective within the legal education, to avoid legal dogmatism and the perception of Indigenous legal systems as something exotic.
Rosy Laura’s presentation gave us an overview of the Mexican judiciary in securing women’s rights. She also shared her experience as an adviser to the National Human Rights Commission.
In her point of view, the importance of citizen participation and social pressure over the judiciary and other spaces of power have proven powerful to impact and generate transformations in public interest agendas. The National Human Rights Commission, even with all its limitations and challenges, is an exemplary case, especially in women’s rights protection, since it has been reinforcing different voices of civil society and recognizing such differences, she said.
Like the other participants, Rosy Laura also called attention to the need for a critical analysis of human rights.
The AJA Conversation Cycle is the project’s newest activity and intends to bring together scholars, activists, and people from the justice system in the Americas to discuss innovative strategies and experiences to democratize access to justice.