Mexican Senate Approves Creation of Anti-Corruption Special Prosecutor Aristegui Noticias
go to original June 16, 2016

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On Wednesday, the full Senate approved the reform of the Organic Law of the Attorney General of the Republic, creating the Special Prosecutor for Combating Corruption.

In a session during the special period , the reform was endorsed with 100 votes in favor, six against and two abstentions. It provides for the creation of the new division within the Attorney General's Office [PGR], whose head will be appointed by the president and must be ratified by the Senate. The bill was immediately sent to the Chamber of Deputies.

The legislation states:

"The Special Prosecutor for Crimes Related to Acts of Corruption is the entity with the technical and operational autonomy to investigate and prosecute those actions that the law considers crimes of corruption,"

Senator Graciela Ortiz, of the Party of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) stated that under Article 102 of the Constitution:

"It is a power of the President to appoint and remove officers of the Public Prosecutor of the Federation". Thus, this must be "the existing legal framework within which this legislation... is considered. It cannot, in our view, assume a different one."

MV Note: Citizen groups had advocated for an independent prosecutor, appointed by an independent body and placed outside the Attorney General's Office.

The amendment states that in order fot the Attorney General of the Republic to be assisted in the dispatching of business, specialized prosecutors are created and, for this purpose, it creates the Special Prosecutor for crimes related to corruption.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

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