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Proyecto
ACCESO is promoting the
rule of law throughout the Americas.
The ACCESO team works with all the sectors in the administration
of justice. We are judges, prosecutors, public defenders,
legal educators, and journalists. We are building new
systems for conflict resolution that are fair, efficient
and transparent.
By training legal innovators, together we are srengthening
the rule of law in our Hemisphere.
For more information contact us
[email protected]
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El Toro de la Justicia Promotes Judicial Reform in Mexico City, DF
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 From November 6 through 9, Chilean Prosecutor and member of ACCESO’s Executive Committee, Angel Valencia Vasquez visited Mexico City, District Federal to promote judicial reform efforts in Mexico.
Working with Professor James Cooper, Director of ACCESO, Valencia met with officials in the Governmental Innovation office at Los Pinos, Mexico’s Presidential Palace, U.S. diplomats and aid officials as well as Mexican academic and judicial reform advocates.
Several states around Mexico, including Zacatecas, Nuevo Leon, and Chihuahua, are all experimenting with oral trials in their respective state criminal procedure. There is a continued need for training and expertise in transitioning these procedures from the inquisitorial to the adversarial models.
Based on the success of the Chilean project from 2000 to 2005, an ACCESO advance team has been working with Mexican partners to develop initiatives throughout the country for the coming years. Valencia, known in ACCESO-landia as el Toro de la Justicia for his aggressive approach to enshrining the rule of law, has been a subdirector of the Coordinating Unit of the Criminal Procedure Reform at the Ministry of Justice in Chile, a prosecutor in Coyhiaque, Valparaiso and Santiago de Chile, and is a former Director of the Law School of the Catholic University of Chile.
He has taught litigation skills to hundreds of Chilean prosecutors, public defenders, judges and law enforcement officials in dozens of programs over the last five years and co-founded Proyecto ACCESO in 1998 along with Cooper, Judge Laura Safer Espinoza and the late Professor Janeen Kerper.
“Mexico City is my kind of city,” said the towering Chilean prosecutor, “It’s XXL. Big avenues, big monuments, big projects and big challenges. Legal reform will take some time and a lot of energy, but it is possible.” |
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