Human Rights Tribune: Excerpts from a Keynote Address

In most Latin American countries, even after the writing of new democratic constitutions, legal institutions have not been reformed and the arbitrary practices of state agents in police, and other institutions for violence control, continued unchanged . Despite all the advances in the civil society and democratic governance, the poor continue to be the preferred victims of violence, criminality and human rights violations. Democratic governance has been unable in this continent to implement or to propose reforms for those institutions, as the judiciary, the public prosecutors office and the police.

Attempting to expose the dimensions of these setbacks and to discuss the perspectives for reform of the state, in particular the judiciary, this paper deals with the problem of how the rule of law in Latin America can become an effective instrument for the appropriation of rights ‘ by the majority of the population. The principal issues addressed here are the problems of illegal violence; the ways to institutional reform, including access to justice and to good governance.