Amparo and Administrative Trials as Accountability Mechanisms in Mexico

This paper explores constitutional and administrative trials as accountability mechanisms provided by the Mexican legal system. Following Kitrosser (2015), we understand accountability as the substantive dimension of the rule of law and part of the overall control of power by Congress and the judicial branch. We define accountability as the legal norms that establish control mechanisms whereby a state agency is obliged to inform and justify its action to an authority which judges and sanctions its performance in order to guarantee its compliance with state goals, including the protection of human rights, and to demand certain results (Fierro 2017), We suggest that amparo and administrative trials are powerful procedures in the hands of citizens for demanding government accountability. We show how, in the Mexican legal system, nullity trials, state liability trials and amparo not only protect the rule of law but also serve as tools for bringing the authorities to account and ordering measures for their improvement. We attempt to show the challenges these procedures still encounter and suggest ways of overcoming them.