Yucatán - and all of Mexico - about to get a major legal facelift with "oral trials"

Radical changes in the way Mexico's criminal justice system operates will premier in Mérida and other Yucatán communities next week. For the first time in the country's 201 year history, trials will be conducted much more like those in common law nations which share English legal traditions and philosophy.

The changes were mandated by constitutional amendments which Mexico adopted in 2008. The most critical difference is that henceforth, Mexican criminal judges will decide the guilt or innocence of an accused person based upon live testimony of witnesses in an American style courtroom. Witnesses will be subjected to direct and cross examination, just as they are in U.S., Canadian and British criminal trials.

Previously, criminal courts here based their decisions almost exclusively upon written documents, such as police reports, which often were hopelessly one-sided. Juries will not be used in future trials, however, and verdicts still will be determined by judges alone.

Mexico is in the process of re-training thousands of judges, as well as prosecutors and defense attorneys, to work in the new system. Here are the details of a recent attorney training session.

June 1, 2012
En breve, juicios orales en Quintana Roo: http://www.poresto.net/ver_nota.php?zona=qroo&idSeccion=1&idTitulo=170113.
Prevén juicios orales de menos de ocho horas: http://sipse.com/noticias/159744-preven-juicios-orales-menos-ocho-horas.html.