| Summary: | This article argues that it is neccessary to look to Mexico's "civil-law tradition", derived from Rome and continental Europe, in order to understand the problem of constitutionalism and judicial review in the country's public law. Two keys elements of that tradition are a depreciation of judges and a resistance to judge-made law, and the theoretical corollary that law emanates from the Legislator. The political and judicial thought of Emilio Rabasa provides an intriguing insight into these issues. Rabasa advocated a powerful supreme court on the North American pattern and yet resisted the "legislación de los jueces" that he oberved in practice while in exile in the United States from 1913 to 1920. The article argues further that despite Rabasa's ambivalence toward the Northe American legal model, the ssence of his juridical thought was critically historical and comparative, a characteristic which declined in post-revolutionary Mexico, resulting in a divergence between law and history.
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