A Comparative-Empirical Analysis of Administrative Courts in Mexico

The main function of administrative courts in Mexico is to resolve disputes between administrative agencies and citizens. Mexico is a federal state with 31 states and a Federal District. Twenty-nine states and the Federal District have administrative courts that review executive action. Most of these courts had followed the French model of reviewing administrative action. However, almost half of the states made a variation of the model and ascribed administrative courts to the judicial branch. How should this variation change the way administrative courts’ judges review administrative action? In order to answer this question we analyzed the behavior of judges empirically within each type of courts. The structure itself of administrative adjudication in Mexico allowed us to do this because administrative courts within the judicial branch and administrative courts within the executive branch coexist in the Mexican Federal system. We used a dataset of more than 4,000 cases from over twenty local administrative courts. We analyzed the influence of the branch to which a court belongs, the procedures to appoint judges, judges; term lengths, and the protection of judges’ salaries in administrative judges’ actual decisions. We classified decisions into two broad categories: pro-government decisions and dismissals. The analysis provides evidence that the branch to which the court belongs; governors’ nominations and judges’ tenure affect judges’ decisions.