Mejía Berdeja defends the usefulness of informal preventive detention

Andrea Becerril

Newspaper La Jornada
Sunday, August 28, 2022, p. 4

In the legal field, The corruption market between judges and lawyers is serious, although there are human rights organizations that do not recognize it and ignore the irregularities that would be generated if informal preventive detention is eliminatedwarned the undersecretary of Public Security, Ricardo Mejía Berdeja.

In the context of the controversy caused by the review to be carried out by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN), he stressed to deputies from Morena – with whom he met and spoke last Thursday – that this precautionary measure allows zero impunitysince it enables the effective detention of criminals, as well as the protection of victims and witnesses.

He gave several examples of criminals who evaded justice by not applying informal preventive detention.

He recalled that the issue came to the SCJN from a criminal’s request for protection and a controversy filed by the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) to article 19 of the Constitution, which establishes the crimes that merit informal imprisonment and He presented several arguments why such appeals should not prosper.

Mejía Berdeja insisted that the measure was created so that criminals do not escape criminal action and crime victims are not threatened by their perpetrators, and mentioned four reasons to consider. It generates the mobilization of forces to arrest criminals, protects victims, witnesses and aims to protect society as a whole.

He then mentioned several examples of criminal cases that are in the sights of public opinion regarding preventive detention. That of José Bernabé N, alias Cowin which a judge decided not to link him to criminal proceedings.

Likewise, he added, the case of the murder of the son of the mayor of Celaya, presumably committed by the cartel of Santa Rosa de Limain which they did not link the alleged criminals to the process and various arrests made by the Secretary of National Defense and the Secretary of the Navy, in which preventive detention did not proceed.

The undersecretary of Public Security highlighted before the morenista deputies that the strengthening of the mechanisms that lead to zero impunity must be a central axis of legislative changes and reminded them that the only one who can amend the Constitution is the Permanent Constituent, leaving without effect a criterion of the Supreme Court.