The 2008 criminal justice reform, which must be implemented throughout Mexico by June 2016, requires rearranging the pieces of the justice system in order to have greater assurance of justice both for persons accused and for victims. To do this, the model adopted strengthens the role of judges: all evidence will be presented in public trials in his presence. This will give more credibility to justice.
Procedural changes also aim to strengthen the role of the defense, while the Public Ministry [investigative police and prosecutors] will lose the procedural advantages by which they are able to condition the direction of the trial even before it starts. Thus, the "previous" (or rather "final") investigation is eliminated in which the prosecuting counsel seeks, clears and assesses means of evidence for itself and by itself; whereas, now [under the reform] the prosecutor will have to present their findings to the judge, subject both to the possibility of defense rebuttal and submitted for public scrutiny.
By losing their legal advantages, the Public Ministry, and their police investigators, will be forced to resort to investigative techniques, which will result in their professionalism for the benefit of victims. In passing, it is expected to decrease direct and indirect crime caused by a portion of these poly-ministerial actors, who in an effort to get "fast-track" results, commit numerous abuses and, in a kind of "on-the-job-training", end up committing crimes of their own. Many kidnappings grew out of the practice of arbitrary detention.
The new system, with its vast possibilities for throwing out illegal evidence, will banish the "out-sourcing", where the Army, Navy and Federal Police had taken on functions of criminal investigation beyond their proper tasks of public safety.
Given the abbreviated procedures and alternative mechanisms for resolving criminal disputes, the reform opens alternatives for more agile forms of justice; however, the oral proceedings will have to be the ultimate guarantee for those on trial and hence its importance.
To complete the model, the reform also "judicializes" prison administration; that is, it puts prison authorities under the control of the sentencing judges to ensure that the prisons manage the right to the full implementation of the legal sentences. [This means eliminating] abuses and privileges, and offering different channels rather than [prisoner] uprisings for resolution of disputes in this [prison] environment. These changes will favor governability and discourage corruption [in the prisons].
The legislative and implementation challenges of this profound transformation of the criminal justice system are enormous. If only one piece does not work (e.g., the police, forensic services or prison system), it will be enough to affect the entire process with Enormous risks. All the eggs are in one basket. Let's take care to make a good cake today that marks five years after passage of the reform.
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*Miguel Sarre earned the law [LL.B.] degree from the Escuela Libre de Derecho (Free School of Law), México City's second oldest law school, and the LL.M. from Notre Dame University in the U.S. A researcher at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM), Sarre’s areas of interest are security, justice, human rights and the criminal justice system. Email: sarre@itam.mx and miguelsarre@gmail.com.
*Miguel Sarre earned the law [LL.B.] degree from the Escuela Libre de Derecho (Free School of Law), México City's second oldest law school, and the LL.M. from Notre Dame University in the U.S. A researcher at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM), Sarre’s areas of interest are security, justice, human rights and the criminal justice system. Email: sarre@itam.mx and miguelsarre@gmail.com.