From written to oral judicial procedures: An exploration of procedural changes and their effects on justice in Mexico

The past twenty years in Mexico have featured a series of radical constitutional and procedural reforms that have marked the transition from predominantly written procedures to oral and public trials. This transition marked the shift from a long-standing civil law tradition into an adversarial model and has entailed a series of normative and institutional changes that have transformed the role of legal authorities and the type and quality of interactions between those authorities and the lawyers and users of the justice system. This exposition refers to the legal and institutional challenges faced by such a transformation and explores the effects of those changes on the performance and legitimacy of the justice system.