Informative and delightfully-written books are rare. Rafael Pérez Palma is the author of one of them. Though a lawyer, he writes in the style of José Rubén Romero’s famous Pito Pérez. Memorias de un juez de pueblo is not an earth-shaking book, but the simple story of eight years as a judge in a provincial Mexican town. There are twenty-three episodes; the years are the 1930’s.
Pérez Palma’s remembrances will be overlooked by many students of contemporary Mexican political life. They should not be, for he offers an intimate account of justice and politics in Mexico. There are no lofty theories, no elaborate interpretations, just tales about the trials and tribulations of a small-town judge. Yet Pérez Palma tells the reader much that is seldom found in more pretentious studies. He writes of the senator whose political machine ruthlessly controls the town, of the governor who keeps close tabs on him, and of the people for whom political rights and elections are meaningless. Justice for him, the provincial judge, is what the senator permits and the governor allows. Right and legal principles are secondary, for this is the Mexico of the 1930’s, a land where the few dictate policy. All of this is told with a wonderful sense of humor.
Political scientists, in particular, should read this unpretentious book. If they do, they will keep their feet on the ground. Again, Memories de un juez de pueblo is not a weighty contribution to scholarly knowledge, just the observations of a man with noble instincts who recognized that justice is often a nebulous dream in Mexico.
