Mexican judiciary promises greater transparency during IAPA conference

Azuela Güitrón acknowledged that the Law on Transparency and Access to Official Public Information, in effect since June 2003, contains provisions limiting the dissemination of information on legal proceedings and that there had been recent agreements between the Supreme Court itself and the Federal Judicature Council that created even greater restrictions.

This was reflected in a warning later by a number of panelists about a Supreme Court ban, ordered last May, on not making court files public until 12 years after pronouncement of sentence – and 36 years in the case of documents filed before the transparency law went into effect, as ordered by the Court in December 2003.

Acknowledging the restrictions and in an apparent expectation of a change of heart by the Supreme Court concerning court reporting, Azuela Güitrón said that “I shall shortly present guidelines on the Law on Transparency and Access to Official Public Information regarding the information that is produced and is in the possession of the judiciary, for which the greatest possible transparency will be sought.”

Just moments earlier, the regional vice-chairman for Mexico of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Juan Francisco Ealy Ortiz, of El Universal, Mexico City, had called the transparency law deficient and said it should be amended so as to guarantee openness of information in judicial proceedings.

The majority of the panelists taking part in the event agreed that greater such openness is urgently needed in Mexico and there were numerous calls for an end to what speakers called the philosophy of withholding information in which “judges speak only through their rulings.”

Miguel Carbonell of the Autonomous University of Mexico’s Legal Research Institute, said in a segment titled “Access to Court Cases and Information” that the right to know embraced the entire judicial process, that case files should be available for public scrutiny, and information should not be restricted solely to the final verdicts and sentences. Agreeing with this, Miguel Treviño, a reporter from the newspaper El Norte, declared that “justice is public and transparent when it is carried out in an open society” and that is the way to increase its credibility among the public.

In the ensuing debate, the issue of opening up case files under terms of a structural reform by the judiciary was resisted by the majority of the state court judges. The view of a number of them was summarized by Coahuila State Superior Court Judge Germán Froto Madariaga when he declared that throughout Mexico there were still news media that would use such openness to commit libel.

The legal counsel of the Reforma Group, Eugenio Herrera Terrazas, said that reporters could be subjected to criminal charges should an official accuse them of libel without due justification. “Fear of this has produced an intimidatory effect,” he said.

There was also agreement on the view that news media and journalists have themselves a duty to support greater openness and transparency.

Hugo Concha, editor of the legal affairs magazine Revista Mexicana de Justicia, said that “it is for the media also to be involved in the transparency process, journalists should be well trained and the media should provide space on a regular basis for publicizing legal proceedings.”

Jean Claude Tron Petit, a federal judge, said in the panel discussion titled “Relations Between Judges and the Media” that “training of judges and journalists is an urgent need. A strategic alliance needs to be forged between the two groups” so that the judges become better communicators and journalists more accurate in their court reporting, he added.

The Los Angeles Times’ Muñoz said that the conference should serve as a stimulus for the judges to go on to take the initiative regarding further discussion forums and training programs on communication for judges and lawyers.

Regarding this, Roberto Rock, of El Universal, Mexico City, recalled that an IAPA conference on access to information held in Mexico City in February 2001 had led to the creation of the Oaxaca Group, made up of journalists and scholars, which in turn resulted in passage of the transparency and access to information law.

This latest conference was attended by numerous IAPA directors and members, among them five former presidents – Rómulo O’Farrill, Novedades, Mexico City; Andrés García Lavín, Novedades, Mérida; Andrés García Gamboa. Novedades de Quintana Roo, Cancún; James McClatchy, McClatchy Newspapers, Sacramento, California, and Edward Seaton, Seaton Newspapers, Manhattan, Kansas.

10th anniversary of the Declaration of Chapultepec

Yesterday’s conference was held within the framework of celebrations by the IAPA in 2004 to mark the 10th anniversary of the Declaration of Chapultepec. This document, which sets out 10 principles for freedom of the press and freedom of expression to exist, was born in March 1994 at Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City following several days of deliberations by more than 130 international figures specially invited by the IAPA.

The IAPA last night hosted conference participants and guests at a ceremony at Chapultepec Castle in which former Association presidents McClatchy and Seaton told how the Declaration came into being and the importance and relevance it has for the consolidation of freedom of the press throughout the Western Hemisphere.

In addition to O’Farrill, McClatchy, Seaton, García Lavín, García Gamboa, Muñoz, Ealy Ortiz and Rock the IAPA was represented by José Santiago Healy, Periódicos Healy, Mexico; Gerardo García Gamboa, La Noticia al Día, Mérida, Mexico; Alfredo Jiménez de Sandi, El Economista, Mexico City; IAPA Executive Director Julio E. Muñoz; Press Freedom Director Ricardo Trotti and Chapultepec Project Manager Sean Casey.

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