Comments on: Mexico to Style Legal System After US http://theunapologeticmexican.org/elmachete/2009/04/25/mexico-to-style-legal-system-after-us/ Where Manifest Destiny Goes to Die Fri, 23 Mar 2012 17:53:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: nezua http://theunapologeticmexican.org/elmachete/2009/04/25/mexico-to-style-legal-system-after-us/comment-page-1/#comment-2530 nezua Sun, 26 Apr 2009 16:50:36 +0000 http://theunapologeticmexican.org/elmachete/?p=2778#comment-2530 Interesting. Thanks for the nuance, Richard. I actually wondered how literal that word was used. I see now my suspicions were on target.... Interesting. Thanks for the nuance, Richard. I actually wondered how literal that word was used. I see now my suspicions were on target….

]]> By: Richard Grabman http://theunapologeticmexican.org/elmachete/2009/04/25/mexico-to-style-legal-system-after-us/comment-page-1/#comment-2529 Richard Grabman Sun, 26 Apr 2009 16:44:33 +0000 http://theunapologeticmexican.org/elmachete/?p=2778#comment-2529 This does not change the Napoleonic Code (Civil Code... Roman Law), which gets into how rights and obligations are defined within over-lapping groups (anything from your family to the human race) but courtroom procedure. The changes don't undo the basics of the law (which took a lot of Venn diagrams and a very patient Dutch attorney to explain to me) but just how court cases are heard. Napoleon never said trials had to be held informally and based on written statements, but that's the way they were in most of Latin America. France -- which is where Napoleonic Code comes from, after all -- always did have open trials and public pleadings. While U.S. lawyers are the obvious trainers for preparing Mexican attorneys for public trials, the reforms are based on Italian and Chilean court procedure, not the U.S. legal system, which has a very different legal system, based on a very different legal theory. This does not change the Napoleonic Code (Civil Code… Roman Law), which gets into how rights and obligations are defined within over-lapping groups (anything from your family to the human race) but courtroom procedure. The changes don’t undo the basics of the law (which took a lot of Venn diagrams and a very patient Dutch attorney to explain to me) but just how court cases are heard.

Napoleon never said trials had to be held informally and based on written statements, but that’s the way they were in most of Latin America. France — which is where Napoleonic Code comes from, after all — always did have open trials and public pleadings. While U.S. lawyers are the obvious trainers for preparing Mexican attorneys for public trials, the reforms are based on Italian and Chilean court procedure, not the U.S. legal system, which has a very different legal system, based on a very different legal theory.

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