Revealing Stat

Mexico has only one judge per 100,000 inhabitants, according to Supreme Court Justice Guillermo Ortiz Mayagoitia, far below the regional average. This actually represents a substantial increase; the number of judges has increased by almost 20 percent since 2007. For comparison, according to the Center of Judicial Studies of the Americas, in 2008 Costa Rica had close to 22 judges per 100,000 people, Uruguay had 14, and Colombia had just shy of 12. The same study says that Mexico had 3.58, which means that either the figures from the Center or Ortiz are off (unless somehow the number of judges dropped by some 70 percent in two years, which I doubt), but there does seem to be a huge shortfall in this vital element of the judiciary in Mexico, despite the judicial reform passed in 2008.