By IPS Correspondents
MEXICO CITY, Jul 28 2003 (IPS)

A defendant in the hands of a court-appointed lawyer facing trial in the courts of the Mexican capital can practically be assured of losing the case, as well as a great deal of money and patience.

The 300 attorneys who work as appointees in the Mexico City courts may handle as many as 60 cases simultaneously each month. They meet with their clients in the courthouse hallways, with no privacy at all. And critics say that many seem better at paying bribes than at litigating.

"He is a crude man. He told me I wouldn’t win the case unless I paid out 10,000 pesos (1,000 dollars) to ‘move the case’," said Rosario, a young woman with little money, about the court-appointed lawyer who is handling her divorce.

Rosario, who has only a third-grade education, is among the thousands of Mexicans who must turn to state-designated attorneys to represent them in court.

According to the Mexico City Commission on Human Rights, a governmental but independent body, says court-appointed lawyers generally are not well-trained, are overloaded with cases and do not have offices.

The monthly wage – around 900 dollars – is not enough to attract more competent legal defenders.

The position of lawyer appointed by the court was created Mexico City in 1940. The law states that these professionals must provide appropriate legal assistance to whomever needs it, free of charge.

But that does not reflect reality. Rosario says her attorney asked her for money in order to pay the court staff and thus "move the case", divorce proceedings that he admitted he did not much understand.

Standing in the middle of the "family" courthouse’s main room, where the clack of typewriters on crowded desks echoes, and dozens of people move about in the heavy, warm environment, Rosario waits for her lawyer to show up to talk about her case.

Noemí Torres, a self-employed attorney who can be found in the capital’s courts each day, comments, "It’s obvious what happens with the state-appointed lawyers: they mistreat their clients, demand too much money, and in the end fail to win the case."

The designated lawyers, just like their colleagues, must work their way through the corruption network woven throughout the tribunals, whether civil, criminal or labour courts.

In order to ensure a case is handled rapidly, one must make various payments – "tips" – to secretaries, attorneys, typists, clerks and other court personnel. "And everyone who has had to appear in court knows it."

Fifty to 70 percent of Mexican judges are corrupt, states a 2002 report on this Latin American country by Dato Param, United Nations special rapporteur on the independence of attorneys and magistrates.

And court-appointed lawyers in Mexico tend to be inept and poorly paid, notes the report.

The human rights watchdog Amnesty International, in its 1999 annual report on Mexico, stated that court-appointed lawyers do not attend interrogations and do not take appropriate steps when their clients have been victims of abuse or torture.

Cristóbal, 30, works as a waiter. He regrets having had to step foot in the courtroom, and "on top of that," be left in the hands of a designated lawyer.

"The case has been going on for two years, and it continues. This is unbearableà and expensive," he says.

Accused of perpetrating a minor theft at a former workplace, he comments that the court system is "completely" corrupt. "Just seeing the desks and the secretaries from a distance, you can smell that they want money."

Judicial proceedings in Mexico take place through the presentation of testimonies and evidence, with the transcriptions filling voluminous books and involving terminology that the accused rarely understand. The defendant is rarely given the opportunity to personally explain to the judge some detail about the events surrounding the case.

Oral presentations by defendants and plaintiffs – part of the judicial tradition in the United States – are seen in Mexico, but only in the movies.

Attorney Torres said that if her court-appointed colleagues wanted to competently handle the five or six cases they take at a time, they would have to read hundreds of pages, have the support of a secretary and office, and find time to draw up legal strategies. But none of that happens.

With such heavy caseloads, these lawyers are limited to pushing their way through the bureaucracy and cannot prepare themselves to win a case, says Hiram Escudero, lawmaker for the conservative National Action Party (PAN), who is seeking legislative reforms to increase the number of such attorneys and improve their working conditions.

Court-appointed lawyers must look out for the rights of the most vulnerable, but in the current context they end up being a hindrance to their clients, according to Escudero.

In the court system, attorneys – court-appointed or not – are referred to as "bananas", because their reputation among clients is that "none of them are straight (honest)."

"We might not have a good reputation, but the truth is that some of us are here to work hard and fight within the system to defend our clients’ rights, with the world’s biggest dose of good faith," said Torres.

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