New Justices

Mexico's Supreme Court has two new members, Luis María Aguilar Morales and Arturo Zaldívar Lelo de Larrea. Here's what Miguel Carbonell had to say about the pair last week:

What can we expect from Zaldívar and Aguilar? They will have little time to define what will be their performance on the Court. They most vote on very delicate topics, those which entirely define a judicial biography. They will have to define their criteria on topics like the right of women to decide about their body and their maternity, the heirarchy of international treaties, the reach of federalism, freedom of expression, judicial control of constitutional reforms, freedom of expression, et cetera.*

Zaldivar has shown himself to be the best plaintiff's attourney** in Mexico; his firm has taken up some of the most important cases in recent years in this realm. He arrives to the Court preceded by great prestige as an academic, above all his continued and informed participation in activities at UNAM; he has the great challenge of serving as the intellectual counterweight to the justice José Ramón Cossío, by far the best prepared and most brilliant of those who compose the group.

Aguilar has had an admirable career always in the Federal Judicial Branch. He knows the Court as few do and he is destined without a doubt to occupy its presidency. The prestige that he has inside the "judicial family" he has earned with hard work.

*The repeat of "freedom of expression" is his mistake, not mine. Must have been the editor's day off.

**Not quite sure if this is exactly what he means by amparista; if I'm wrong or there's a better definition, please let me know.