¿Puede la independencia judicial explicar la justicia postransicional?

Abstract

Post-transitional justice in Latin America started in the Southern Cone in the mid-1990s and gradually spread to a number of countries which are seeking to address the human rights violations committed during the authoritarian regimes that dominated the continent from 1970s to the early 1990s. To distinguish trials at the time of transition from trials that take place years into the consolidation phase, this article develops a theoretical framework that explains variations in the propensity to prosecute the military for gross human rights violations (i.e., the number of trials) across time and across countries. The main argument presented here is that constitutional reforms have made Latin American judges more prone to prosecute the military for past human right violations because judges now enjoy more independence from powerful Executives and the hierarchy of the judicial system has loosened, making lower court judges less dependent on their superiors. As a result, judges, especially those sympathetic to a human rights agenda, can push prosecutions more forcefully than they could before.