The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) has planned discuss the figure of preventive detention unofficial in Mexico.
In an interview with Ciro Gómez Leyva, the former minister, Arturo Zaldívar, explained what it means and what changes are necessary for its elimination in the country.
The informal preventive detention implies that when a person is accused of a crimemust remain in jail.
Zaldívar explained that in other countries it does not work like this because in international standards people are not in prison while they are being processed and are released.
What is needed to change informal preventive detention in Mexico?
It is only in prison a person when there is risk of escape or obstruct evidence such as affecting victims or witnesses, in that case the accused person is deprived of his freedom.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has pointed out the Mexican State because preventive detention violates the crime of presumption of innocence.
“The problem of if the informal preventive detention were voted from one day to the next is that the entire system of people who are prosecuted in freedom requires a very complex framework to keep them located while the process is underway,” explained Arturo Zaldívar.
This means that it would be necessary to locate the person, know where they are, their behavior and establish a control in which they will sign from time to time.
However, Mexico does not have that system or that technology, Therefore, in the opinion of the former minister, it would be necessary to take time to make this transition.
This surveillance system would also include judges and magistrates who are at risk due to the sentence they could issue.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of the Interior (Segob)has pointed out that a court like the IACHR It cannot indicate possible modifications to the Constitution, which is why the Court would not have such jurisdiction to make such changes.
