THE MEXICAN CODE

In connection with the Institute of Comparative Law at Harvard and the recent federal commission for a criminal survey throughout the country, comes the news that Mexico has also turned attention to her criminal conditions.

The grant of supreme executive power to President Emilio Portes Gil in revising the criminal code may surely appear to most as a drastic reform. Considering the national peculiarities of the country, however, any discussion of the particular measures should prove of interest and even of value. The substitution of expert alienists in place of a jury system has at least the ultramodern touch; the alleviation of fines to suit the individual income of the prisoner though departing from the stern unswerving rigors of the usual courts of justice, seems in line with proper social ethics; whereas the last important item, the establishment of a federal committee to assist ex-convicts in social re-adjustment, judging from the recent criminal survey of Dr. Glueck, is a really national necessity in this country. Whether these interesting elements will prove to be a substantial legal code is open to conjecture. At least it shows a serious effort on the part of a nation hitherto wavering in legal policies to come to grips with a problem which is really affecting universal attention.