Edward Murillo
Newspaper La Jornada
Monday, September 5, 2022, p. 4
This Monday the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) will decide the future of the informal preventive detention (PPO), in a session that requires the vote of at least eight ministers to declare this precautionary measure unconstitutional.
In the event that the Court makes this decision, its effects will not imply the immediate release of those who are subject to this type of deprivation of liberty, according to the project of Minister Luis María Aguilar.
The proposal is to annul the application of part of article 19 of the Constitution that allows the PPO to be imposed on twenty crimes, ranging from sexual abuse of minors to attacks against the security of the nation.
Consequently, in that case, sections of article 167 of the National Code of Criminal Procedure, article 5 of the National Security Law, as well as article 2 of the Federal Law against Organized Crime, which authorize this precautionary measure, would be invalid.
Even if that is the meaning of the SCJN agreement, the effects of the ruling will not be general or immediate.
The origin of informal preventive detention will correspond to the competent legal operators to decide and resolve in each specific case, subject to their knowledge.
points out the Aguilar project.
reactions
The matter has sparked various reactions. While bar associations and civil society organizations are in favor of ending the PPO, officials and activists have spoken out in favor of keeping it.
The Mexican Bar Association delivered to the SCJN a amicus curiae –a legal argument of a party not directly involved in a trial–, where it states: We categorically reject the figure of informal preventive detention, recommending its disappearance from our legal system and proposing an interpretation in accordance with international treaties and criteria, so that judges refrain from imposing automatic preventive detention.
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In other amicus curiaethe Intersecta association affirms that this measure causes inequality: By preventing judging the circumstances of each case, informal preventive detention prevents judging from a gender perspective
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In contrast, the undersecretary of Public Security, Ricardo Mejía Berdeja, warned that eliminating the PPO would generate great impunity.
The activist Adrián LeBarón made a call to the SCJN in favor of the PPO: “Before deciding to release criminals, think about the victims. If my daughter’s and my grandchildren’s assassins could carry out their trial in freedom, they would have already used their ‘presumption of innocence’ to kill more people, incinerate more families and sow more pain”.
