This Monday the ministers of the Supreme Court will discuss the project of Luis María Aguilar, which project proposes to allow the application of article 167, seventh paragraph, of the National Code of Criminal Procedure, and article 19, second paragraph, of the Constitution, by declaring informal preventive detention unconventional.
For several weeks, the President of the Republic has expressed his rejection of the fact that informal preventive detention is not applied, considering that it will represent impunity and corruption.
Last week, Ricardo Mejía, Undersecretary of Public Security, warned that eliminating this precautionary measure could turn “the revolving door” into an “open door” that would free more than 90,000 people, including alleged murderers, kidnappers, and femicides.
For its part, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention urgently urged Mexico to annul compulsory pretrial detention, also called “unofficial pretrial detention” or “automatic” detention, considering that it is contrary to international guarantees for the protection of human rights. rights, as the jurisprudence of the Working Group has indicated on multiple occasions.
Miriam Estrada-Castillo, chairperson-rapporteur of the Working Group, stated that informal preventive detention is also contrary to judicial independence and seriously jeopardizes the right to personal integrity and the guarantee of not being a victim of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
“One of the most serious consequences of mandatory pretrial detention has been that many Mexicans spend more than a decade deprived of their liberty awaiting trial, without sentence and in conditions of serious risk to their lives and personal integrity. This also contributes to prison overcrowding,” said Estrada-Castillo.
