Translation & Writing Exercises

Basic Instructions: 1. We have prepared three exercises for you. 2. Start with the one that you feel more comfortable with. 3. You may do as much as you feel appropriate. 4. The more you practice the better. 5. You do not need to do all of the exercises if you do not want to. 6. When you finish, send it to: [email protected] so that we can provide you with feedback.

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Module 1: The Mexican Legal System

Exercise A Translation Practice (English-Spanish) Source Text Codification Efforts in Mexico
Mexico's efforts to produce the five basic codes which sustain the legal system in any country belonging to the civil legal tradition -that is, the Civil Code, the Code of Civil Procedure, the Penal Code, the Code of Penal Procedure, and the Code of Commerce- date back to 1822, one year after Mexico acquired its political independence. However, the most fruitful results did not materialize until the late 1880s.

Your Translation Esfuerzos de Codificacin en Mxico

Los esfuerzos de Mxico para producir los cinco cdigos que sostienen el sistema legal en un pas perteneciente a la tradicin de derecho civil es decir, el Cdigo Civil, el Cdigo de Procedimientos Civiles, el Cdigo Penal, el Cdigo de Procedimientos Penales, y el Cdigo de Comercio datan de 1822, un da despus de que Mxico obtuvo su independencia poltica. Sin embargo, los resultado ms prspero no se materializ hasta finales de los mil ochocientos ochentas. . Continuar.

Following the European tradition, the important task of codifying a major branch of Mexican law was the work of an eminent group of jurists working as a special commission appointed by the executive at the federal level (and at the local level for the enactment of the corresponding State codes). Interestingly, in Mexico, some of the most important pioneering codification efforts were initiated at the state level.

Civil Code
The Civil Code is of central importance to Mexico's legal system. In general, this code is present at each and every step of the life of Mexicans, as well as that of foreigners when they are present in Mexico and engage in certain acts or transactions. In a nutshell, the Civil Code is so important because it is at the core of Mexico's social fabric: it incorporates the country's family law, regulates personal and real property, details a variety of major contracts, and governs trusts and estates. A section at the end of this code sets forth and details the services provided by the Civil Registry and by the Public Registry of Property and Commerce in Mexico. Traditionally, the Civil Code is divided into four major sections, known as "Books." The Book of Individuals (Personas) addresses the legal capacity and rights of individuals and legal entities, ranging from birth, paternity, and guardianships to marriage, divorce, kinship and support, parental authority, emancipation and majority. The Book of Assets (Bienes) includes laws relating to real estate, personal property,

usufructs, easements and servitudes, and adverse possession. The Book of Decedent's Estates (Sucesiones) relates to last wills and testaments, testamentary and intestate successions, concubinage relations, and executors. The Book of Obligations (Obligaciones) and contracts comprises general obligations, payment, associations and companies, and guarantees in general. The legal innovations introduced by the Civil Code of 1928 include the legal equality of men and women (Art. 2, Federal Civil Code or FCC), property rights (Art. 840), civil liability in tort cases (Art. 1910), strict liability in personal injury cases (known in Mexico as "Extra-contractual objective liability") (Art. 1913), professional liability (Arts. 1935-1937), the promise to contract (Arts. 22432247), the exercise of judicial discretion in certain cases (Art. 21), the recognition of unions as legal entities (Art. 25), and the equal authority and privileges of husband and wife regarding the household (Art. 168). Two closing commentaries should be made regarding the Civil Code. First, the Civil Code of the Federal District had a traditional dual role in Mexico. It was the local code for the Federal District (that is, Mexico City) in ordinary matters, and for the entire Republic in federal matters. However, this legal duality changed in 2000. Today, Mexico has a Federal Civil Code and a separate Civil Code for the Federal District. This change, consisting in having two separate codes, introduced substantive reforms and updated the legislation of the Mexico City code in the area of family law.26 Secondly, the Civil Code for the Federal District, given Mexico's highly centralized political system (until 2000 when the nation's political control by the PRI crumbled), was reproduced almost verbatim by each of the 31 States since 1884. Until now, there has been little, if any, difference between the Federal Civil Code, on the one hand, and each of the Codes of the thirty-one States, on the other. It is likely that in the future, as changes occur throughout the country, each State will revise and update its own local civil code in order to reflect these changes.
Code of Civil Procedure

The Code of Civil Procedure of the Federal District was promulgated on May 15, 1884, which reproduced most of the provisions contained in the corresponding code enacted twelve years earlier, on August 13, 1872. The current code was published on August 29, 1932, and has been amended several times. In 1896, Porfirio Daz,

then President of Mexico, published the Federal Code of Civil Procedure, which was then amended in 1908. The current Federal Code of Civil Procedure dates back to 1942,27 and was amended in 1988 to adopt the policy of "Limited Territorialism," which allowed the application of foreign law to Mexico. This amendment also added a new section on "International Procedural Cooperation."28 This code was recently amended.

Penal Code
The first Mexican Penal Code was enacted by the State of Veracruz on April 28, 1835, and was amended in 1849. It was not until 1871 that the Penal Code of the Federal District, known as the Martnez de Castro Code, was promulgated. After the 1910 revolution, a new Penal Code was published in 1929.29 This code was then substituted by the current 1931 Code which, in turn, has been amended many times.

Code of Penal Procedure

The Code of Penal Procedure for the Federal District appeared on September 15, 1880, to be repealed by the 1890 Code. The sources for this code included pertinent legislative enactments from France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Germany, and Japan. This code was replaced by a code promulgated on October 2, 1929. The current Code of Penal Procedure dates back to 1931.30 The first Federal Code of Civil Procedure was published in the Diario Oficial de la Federacin (D.O.) Of December 16, 1908. The current code dates back to 1931, and has been amended many times, including a major revision in 2002.

Code of Commerce
In a country where codes and other legislative enactments play an important role in the daily conduct of legal, political, social, and economic interactions, Mexico's Code of Commerce is not only the oldest in that nation, but also one of the most venerable throughout Latin America. This Code governs the conduct of business transactions throughout the Republic of Mexico, although not in an exclusive manner. This regulatory power is shared, first, with the applicable provisions of the Federal Civil Code, and secondly, with numerous specialized federal statutes that address specific matters of commercial importance, such as companies, negotiable instruments, insurance contracts,

bankruptcies, maritime law, etc.32 The application of the provisions of the Federal Civil Code to commercial matters is explicitly authorized by Article 2 of the Code of Commerce as a mechanism for supplementing its provisions in the absence of commercial rules. Given the paramount importance the Federal Civil Code plays in the conduct of civil and commercial matters throughout the republic of Mexico, it is only logical to expect that this Code is to fill in the gaps found in the Code of Commerce. This is especially true when one considers that the Federal Civil Code addresses in detail inter alia, contractual matters -including the formation, interpretation, enforcement and breach of contracts, civil associations and companies, movable and immovable assets, mortgages, the Public registry of Property and Commerce, etc.all significant legal avenues for the conduct of business transactions. Adhering to the legal philosophy of the epoch, the 1889 Code of Commerce may be described as a comprehensive and systematic legal corpus that contains the major principles, rules, and institutions of a mercantile nature, both substantive and procedural, divided into five books. Out of these books, books 3 and 4 have been repealed. The Code was originally composed of 1,5000 Articles (similar to Sections) but 649 of them (approximately 43%) have since been abrogated or statutorily replaced, as a result of 29 major amendments that took place from 1932 through 2003.Today, the Code of Commerce is effectively composed of 780 Articles.
Source Text: http://www.llrx.com/mexicolegalsystem.htm

Exercise B Translation Practice (Spanish-English) Source Text

Fuentes Formales del Derecho

Your Translation
Formal Sources of Law

Son el origen del derecho, es decir, de donde nace. Tradicionalmente, las fuentes del derecho se clasifican en reales, histricas y formales. Dentro de las fuentes formales, que son los procesos de creacin de normas jurdicas, el derecho mexicano contempla a la legislacin, la jurisprudencia y la costumbre.

They are the genesis of law, where it comes from. Traditionally, the sources of law are classified into: real, historical and formal. Within the formal sources, which are the processes of creation of juridical provisions, the Mexican legal system includes legislation, jurisprudence and custom.

Tambin encontramos como fuentes a las . Continue normas individualizadas y a los principios generales del derecho.

1. Legislacin La ley constituye en Mxico la ms importante fuente formal del derecho. En el mbito federal, el proceso legislativo est previsto en los artculos 71 y 72 constitucionales y consta de seis etapas, que son: iniciativa, discusin, aprobacin, sancin, publicacin e inicio de vigencia. Es importante sealar que existen procesos similares en cada una de las entidades federativas. 2. Jurisprudencia Es un conjunto de principios establecidos en las resoluciones de determinados tribunales, al interpretar las leyes o al definir los casos no previstos en ellas. Los Jueces y los tribunales estn obligados a resolver, de una u otra forma, los asuntos sometidos a su conocimiento, pero a veces es preciso averiguar el sentido que el legislador le quiso dar. De esta manera, en el mbito federal, el Poder Judicial de la Federacin crea jurisprudencia a travs del Pleno de la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nacin, de sus Salas, de los Tribunales Colegiados de

Circuito, de la Sala Superior del Tribunal Electoral y de las Salas Regionales de ste. Existen otros tribunales que tambin pueden emitir jurisprudencia en sus respectivos mbitos de competencia; por ejemplo, el Tribunal Federal de Justicia Fiscal y Administrativa, el Tribunal Superior Agrario, la Junta Federal de Conciliacin y Arbitraje y los Tribunales Superiores de Justicia de algunas entidades federativas. 3. La Costumbre Es el procedimiento consuetudinario de creacin del Derecho. Se trata de normas jurdicas no escritas, impuestas por el uso, es decir, a travs de la reiteracin constante de una conducta de los hombres. La legislacin mexicana, en algunos casos, admite la costumbre a falta de ley u otra disposicin expresa, ya que contra la observancia de la ley no puede alegarse desuso, costumbre o prctica en contrario. La costumbre est prevista en algunos ordenamientos, tales como: el Cdigo de Comercio, diversos Cdigos Civiles, la Ley General de Ttulos y Operaciones de Crdito y la Ley Federal del Trabajo. 4. Normas Individualizadas Se crean para aplicarse en forma individual a una persona o grupo de personas claramente definido. Entre ellas podemos mencionar las sentencias judiciales, los contratos, las resoluciones administrativas y los testamentos. Pueden ser creadas inclusive por particulares como por ejemplo los contratos; sin embargo, en este caso slo obligan a quienes expresamente los aceptan.

5. Los principios generales del derecho Son verdades jurdicas notorias,

indiscutibles, de carcter general, creadas mediante procedimientos jurdico-filosficos de generalizacin. Constituyen una fuente supletoria de la ley, que permite a los juzgadores resolver las controversias frente a las lagunas u omisiones de sta. Algunas veces es obligatorio recurrir a ellos, segn se advierte del contenido del ltimo prrafo del artculo 14 constitucional, que dice: En los juicios del orden civil, la sentencia definitiva deber ser conforme a la letra, o a la interpretacin juridical de la ley, y a falta de sta se fundar en los principios generales del derecho. En Mxico no existe un listado expreso de principios generales del derecho, porque su nmero vara constantemente debido al perfeccionamiento de que son objeto. As, queda a criterio del juzgador determinarlos o deducirlos, siempre y cuando no desarmonicen o estn en contradiccin con el conjunto de normas legales cuyas lagunas u omisiones han de llenarse con la aplicacin de dichos principios.

Source: http://www.scjn.gob.mx/conocelacorte/documents/publicaciones/Sistema-Juridico-Mexicano.pdf

Exercise C Writing Practice Write a 500-word essay What would change of the Mexican legal system?