IACHR condemns Mexico for case of abuse of preventive detention

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled this Wednesday that Mexico “it’s responsible” of violating the guarantees of two men who spent more than 17 years in pretrial detention.

“Mexico is responsible for the violation of the rights to personal integrity, personal liberty, judicial guarantees, equality before the law and judicial protection” of daniel garcia and Reyes Alpízarwho were arrested in 2002, determined the Court.

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García and Alpízar were arrested in the framework of the investigations for the homicide of Maria de los Angeles Tamescouncilor of Atizapan of Zaragozamunicipality of Mexico state (center).

They were interrogated and a measure of “rooting” while the investigation was progressing, for which they were in preventive detention.

Once the investigation was finished, the criminal process began and both remained in prison under that figure “for more than 17 years”, affirmed the Inter-American Court, based in San José.

In 2022 both were sentenced to 35 years in prison for murder. The sentence was appealed.

In addition to the rooting, in Mexico there is informal preventive detention, which, unlike justified preventive detention, is ordered by a judge and not by a prosecutor, without a request from the Public ministrybased on the accusation of a crime provided for in the norm.

The Inter-American Court determined that Mexico must “annul in its internal legal system the provisions related to pre-trial detention” and “adapt its internal legal system on informal pre-trial detention”, among other reparation measures.

Following the ruling, the Mexican government announced in a statement that it will take the necessary steps to adapt its laws to the American Convention on Human Rights.

“The Mexican State will carefully analyze the resolutions of the sentence issued by the Inter-American Court, with the aim of being in a position to comply with its provisions.”, he added.

40% of the almost 227,000 prisoners recorded in Mexico are in pretrial detention, some for several years, according to an estimate last September by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the UN.

That body asked to eliminate the automatic modality, existing since 1917, considering that it violates the presumption of innocence, due process and equality before the law.

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In its judgment, the Court indicated that informal pretrial detention contravenes the American Convention on rights, since no mention is made of the purpose of the measure or procedural dangers to be prevented.

The Supreme Court of Mexico seeks a way to repeal this restrictive measure to resolve the cases of more than 92,000 people in pretrial detention in the country.

Despite the criticism, Mexico’s president, the leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obradormaintains that the norm, which he considers key in the fight against crime and impunity, can only be modified by Congress.

Source: Elcomercio

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