Mexico’s Supreme Court holds its first session outside Mexico City, in Chiapas
TENEJAPA, Mexico (AP) — Mexico’s Supreme Court held its first session Thursday in front of its neoclassical building in Mexico City, a mountain town in the southern state of Chiapas, marking the start of its plan to bring the country’s highest court to the country’s most remote corners.
Under a tent in Tenejapa’s central square, some 2,000 people listened to the court’s deliberations.
As part of a constitutional reform, the court’s judges were popularly elected for the first time last year. Its chief judge is Hugo Aguilar, an indigenous lawyer from the neighboring state of Oaxaca.
“Often in our communities we only feel the effects of a decision” made remotely, Aguilar said Thursday. Now the goal is “for you to see how we deliberate, to know what we say, how we think and make a decision.”
Some of those present, indigenous leaders and authorities, held signs stating “the right to self-determination”. Others simply came to listen and participate in a historic moment.
“It makes me happy that this new minister (Aguilar) is coming to the villages, to the cities to deliver justice because we really need to listen to the people,” said María de la Cruz Velasco, president of a foundation that helps victims of femicide.
Among those present were members of the La Candelaria community, from the municipality of San Cristobal de las Casas, which has been demanding autonomy for years. The case went to the Supreme Court and was one of the issues discussed on Thursday.
Court hearings can often be tedious and difficult to follow for anyone outside the legal profession, but Indigenous people and victims of violence have always had an ally in court. She generally defended human rights from a progressive perspective, although some of the sentences handed down were not always carried out.
Velasco recalled that when her daughter was killed, the local courts did not want to classify the crime as femicide, but the Supreme Court ultimately decided that it was not a normal homicide because it had a gender dimension. “Today, my daughter’s (killer) is serving a 55-year prison sentence,” she said.
This court is the first to be elected by the people and the argument for this choice was in part to make it more responsive and accountable. The idea has been widely criticized because it politicizes Mexico’s highest court. Voter turnout was extremely low and candidates linked to the ruling party won an overwhelming majority of seats.
But on Thursday, in Tenejapa, nestled in the mountains of Chiapas, this controversy was not discussed. There was gratitude that the court had come to them.
