Violations of Legal Due Process are 'Daily Bread' - Especially for Mexico's Indigenous DorAlfredo Mendez - La Jornada
go to original January 30, 2013

Due process violations of the accused are 'daily bread' in Mexico, and one sector that suffers most are indigenous who do not speak Spanish, whose rights to interpreters and to presumption of innocence are commonly violated.

Following a review of courts of the Federal Judiciary (PJF) in Mexico City, which represent less than ten percent of the more than seven hundred of Mexico's authorized courts, La Jornada was able to document the existence of at least one hundred sixty criminal cases in which the accused and / or convicted allege violations of their constitutional rights.

Police abuses, the lack of translators in all languages spoken in Mexico, and inadequate access to a qualified public defender are the main allegations of complainants in demands for protection [injunction], or in appeals of prison sentences. However, in most cases, the defendants alleging violations of due process have only obtained injunctions to re-do judicial procedures, but not for their immediate release, indicated the judges, federal prosecutors and public defenders interviewed by this daily.

The judges and prosecutors consulted agreed that although in many cases violations of defendants' rights to a proper defense, presumption of innocence and due process are proved, so far there is no case law from the Supreme Court or from the circuit courts that might compel judges to grant immediate release when such violations are proved.

"For now all we can do is grant injunctions for purposes of replacing procedures, so that if certain proofs were not evaluated, or [if they were] not respected, for example, the right of an indigenous defendant to a translator, the court re-tries the case, clearing the formal defects and procedural violations in order to issue a new sentence," said a judge of criminal amparo [protective injunction] consulted by this newspaper.

The lawyers who, like the judges and prosecutors agreed to speak with La Jornada provided that no names be mentioned, indicated that thousands of criminal cases are currently being settled in courts across the country and there was violation of due process in some of them.

They explained that the case of Florence Cassez, released last week by the Supreme Court for violations of her constitutional rights to a proper defense, presumption of innocence and to contact her consulate, is a "tempest in a teapot", which in no way will mean that from now on the federal judges may decide in the same way.

"Make no mistake: the case of this French lady (Florence Cassez) is not jurisprudence. It's only an isolated judgment of three justices of our highest constitutional court, but that consequently it might be mandatory for us...no, not at all," said one of the judges interviewed."

See Spanish original

Posted by Jane Brundage at Mexico Voices

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