La Jornada: Alfredo Méndez
Four weeks after the oral and adversarial criminal justice system for federal crimes went into effect in Mexico City, the Attorney General's Office (PGR) has brought just four cases before control judges.
In theory, the 2008 Criminal Justice System Reform tries, at the constitutional level, to assure that pretrial detention is the exception, not the rule. To date, however, no detainee has been released on bail.
In fact, in the cases in which the Federal Public Ministry [prosecutorial function in Attorney General's Office] has brought charges, the defendant's right to obtain release [on bail]—and hence undergo the judicial proceeding outside prison—has been denied.
From February 29 to date, the PGR has submitted four cases to the Centers for Federal Criminal Justice (CJPF) and put at the court's disposition four defendants: two for oil theft, one for drug crimes and another for carrying a weapon for the exclusive use of the Army.
Of these crimes, only the drug-related ones are described in the catalog of legal preventive detention. Even so, the judges also denied bail for the other charges, putting forward the risk that the judicial proceeding will be evaded.
The National Code of Criminal Procedure states new rules for bringing criminal proceedings. In theory, it increases the possibilities that a person accused of a crime not appearing in the catalog of legal preventive detention can undergo the judicial proceeding on bail. Spanish original