abstract
- According to Manuel Atienza, «legal formalism» expresses three theoretical meanings. First, as formal rationality; second, as a conception of Law; and finally, as ritualistic behavior of legal operators. Then, I describe ten examples that I consider paradigmatical of a formalistic way of thinking which I call pathologies in Mexican legal practice, arising from a combination of both judicial activism and ritualistic behaviors widely described in Atienza¿s opus.