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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | March 2007 
Mexican Leader Proposes Justice Reforms
 Mark Stevenson - Associated Press
| | Mexican city police patrol a street in the capital's notorious Tepito district February 20, 2007. Mexican President Felipe Calderon, battling rampant organized crime, launched a wide-reaching justice reform plan on Friday to give police more power, protect witnesses and speed up court cases. (Reuters/Daniel Aguilar) |
Mexico City - President Felipe Calderon on Friday proposed sweeping reforms to Mexico's justice system, including U.S.-style trials and a unified criminal code.
Antiquated procedures and a lack of transparency in Mexico's legal system make it hard for officials to imprison criminals and fire corrupt police, and the system has little public trust.
Calderon told a gathering of legislators and legal experts he would send to Congress proposals that would make it easier to fire corrupt police officers and seize criminals' property. Some of the measures would require constitutional changes.
"Many of our laws have been outstripped by the complexity of the crime problem, and it is time to reform our justice system, to bring it up to date with new realities," Calderon said. "We have problems, unfortunately, of police forces being infiltrated all over the country."
Calderon is pushing for a nationwide transition to trials similar to those in the U.S., which some of Mexico's 31 states have already partially adopted.
Trials are currently conducted behind closed doors by a judge who bases his rulings largely on written submissions.
The president also proposed changing the constitution to establish a single, nationwide criminal code. Each state now writes its own code, and Calderon said the differences often create "loopholes through which criminals escape justice."
The president also proposed a measure to protect witnesses' identities in sensitive cases, such as those involving organized crime.
"In organized crime cases, the proposal is to allow judges to take measures to guarantee that the names and personal information of witness be kept secret, in the most sensitive cases," Calderon said.
The president also said he wants to "give police the power to investigate." Those duties currently are reserved for Mexico's equivalent of detectives, who are relatively few in number. |
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