United Nations Official Says Full Switch to Oral Trials in Mexico Unlikely in 2016 Daily Excelsior
go to original October 31, 2015

Mexico will struggle to meet its deadline next year to have a new system of oral trials operating nationwide, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said.

Mexico is working on implementing a constitutional reform, passed in 2008, that would replace its current system of closed trials based on written testimony, with more transparent oral trials similar to the United States.

“It is clear that a lot would have to get done very quickly to meet the deadline right on time and probably it will be staggered in different communities,” Power told reporters in a conference call from Monterrey.

Mexico committed to have oral trials up and running across the country by June 2016, but so far less than a third of the country’s 31 states have implemented the new system.  Human rights groups blame the current system for locking up people for years before they get a trial while many are wrongly convicted, sometimes with confessions extracted by torture.

The United States has committed nearly 250 million dollars to Mexico to help it make the transition to oral trials as part of the Merida Initiative, a security agreement between the two countries. Power met with Mexico’s Attorney General Arely Gomez on this week as part of a three day visit to the country.

Read the rest at Daily Excelsior

Related: Mexico Justice System Inadequate to Investigate and Prosecute Torture Cases - Amnesty International (Mexico Voices)

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