Liberty in Mexico: Writings on Liberalism from the Early Republican Period to the Second Half of the Twentieth Century

Mariano Otero

206 Mariano otero Mariano Otero (1817–50), born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, was a lawyer and a liberal politician. Otero was editor of the newspaper El Siglo XIX and a firm believer in liberal reform. He played a prominent role as a constitution maker in the 1840s. The writings of Alexis de Tocqueville influenced Otero’s thinking regarding the role of the judiciary, federalism, and particularly judicial review. Otero proposed in Mexico a legal recourse to protect individual rights against the state called juicio de amparo. Otero was acutely aware of some of the institutional flaws of the 1824 federal Constitution.When, in 1847, the liberal faction in Congress considered restoring the Constitution ,Otero, a deputy, wrote a dissenting vote in which he elaborated on the reforms that were necessary to amend that charter. Otero’s individual vote so influenced the deputies in Congress that when the 1824 Constitution was finally restored, an “act of reforms” (basically Otero’s recommendations) was attached to it. He served as minister of internal and external relations under President Herrera in 1848. His untimely death from cholera at thirty-three years of age prevented him from participating in the 1856–57 Constituent Congress, which drafted the 1857 liberal charter. We present Otero’s individual vote submitted to Congress on April 5, 1847. ...