Human Rights Activists Say Popular Trials in Indigenous Communities are Legitimate Fernando Camacho Servin - La Jornada
go to original February 4, 2013

Mexican militia creates court to try detainees (MinWashingtonNews)

Popular trials held in indigenous communities of the Costa Chica region of Guerrero is part of a process of recovering the traditional regulatory systems of indigenous peoples following the failure and corruption of the Western legal model, said activists of civil society organizations.

Vidulfo Rosales, lawyer at the Tlachinollan Center for Human Rights, stated that the initial "spontaneous reaction" of communities affected by organized crime was to create armed guards that would fill the gap left by the authorities. But the people have already moved beyond that point and are now involved in a process of profound reflection about how to build a justice system based on traditional norms.

He said that the indigenous peoples "are recovering their ancestral systems of justice," which have  clear legal justification both in Article Two of the Constitution and in Law 701 of Guerrero and of the Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization.

Rosales explained: "A good part of the traditional justice system rests on the concept of 're-education', that is, on itinerant work that the person is sentenced to perform in several communities until representatives of the people feel that the damage has been repaired, and the aggressor now understands the consequences of his actions."

Manuel Olivares, coordinator of the Guerrero Network of Civil Human Rights Agencies, agreed that  self-defense groups and popular judgments express the response of citizens to the way the Mexican government has been overrun by crime.

"Popular Trials have complete legitimacy, in that they demonstrate that the people do not trust public ministries [investigative police, prosecutors, courts] to curb crimes such as extortion and payment of 'protection money'," he added.

See Spanish original

Posted by Jane Brundage at Mexico Voices

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