Lawyers Committee’s Approach to Reform in Mexico

The Lawyers Committee believes that police abuse stems from both defects in criminal procedure and institutional weaknesses in the police. Accordingly, LCHR has sought to improve the treatment of those caught up in the criminal justice system by pushing for reform of criminal procedure. A follow-up project beginning in 2002 will study existing accountability mechanisms and advocate new strategies for accountability.

After surveying the field in Mexico, we believe that we can best promote change by working along three axes: developing diagnostic tools, bringing together isolated communities of activists, academics and selected officalsl and brokering exhnages with international actors.

Two years of study, more than 250 interviews, and review of thousands of documents led to the 2001 publication of Legalized Injustice: Mexican Criminal Procedure and Human Rights acclaimed as one of the best diagnostics of persistent problems in Mexican justice.

This report, written with the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center in Mexico City, focuses on how criminal justice in Mexico either encourages torture and mistreatment or simply fails to deter these practices. At fault are unjust procedures and practices such as inadequate access to counsel that have over time been “legalized” — sanctioned by or interpreted as being in accord with Mexican law. Included in the report are detailed accounts of illustrative cases and recommendations for changes in law and practice.

In Legalized Injustice, the Lawyers Committee and the Prodh advocate specific reforms to Mexico City’s criminal procedure code, such as calling for an exclusionary rule to ensure that confessions extracted under mistreatment are not used in evidence.

In April 2001, at Mexico’s Ibero-American University, the Prodh and the Lawyers Committee convened a daylong discussion among prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys, academic experts and NGO’s about our recommendations and the proposed reforms. Perhaps most surprising about this encounter was the degree of consensus among a diverse group with often adverse interests. (As the moderator, a respected attorney and law professor, commented at its close, his “biggest challenge” that day was “finding disagreement” about what the group agreed was an eminently necessary set of recommendations.) Most recently, the Attorney General’s office in Mexico City informed the Lawyers Committee that it would adopt many of the recommendations we put forth during the debates on criminal procedure reform this fall. The Committee has been pushing Mexico City’s legislature to hold its first legislative hearing on proposals for reform. So far, the Attorney General’s office has expressed its support for the idea.

In addition to promoting specific reforms, the report aimed to demonstrate a methodology that is case-based but goes beyond documenting and denouncing examples of abuse. In recent years, many activists have been forced into a sterile debate with officials who claim, that the reports of serious mistreatment are diminishing, and that the problem of torture, for example, is no longer a priority. As Legalized Injustice asserts in its introduction, the Lawyers Committee believes firmly that across the nation, the number of official reports is both alarming and only part of the picture. Moreover, absent institutional reform, the current system remains an open invitation to more abuse, and a virtual guarantee that many cases will not be prevented, documented or punished. In the current context of increased concern over Mexico’s systemic challenges, we believe that NGOs can enhance their effectiveness in collaboration with lawyers to dissect concrete cases and link them to the policies and practices that legitimize abuse.

Promote police accountability

The absence of local models of good police practice and solid accountability is one of the crippling problems facing reformers inside or out of government. Mexico has made episodic efforts to clean house, and build better foundations for the police, usually when facing international scrutiny or greater demands form Washington for cooperation in the war on drugs. It has relied almost exclusively on widespread dismissals and attempts to recruit and train clean cadets. However, faced with insufficient results, they have yet to develop an alternative approach.

In the future the Lawyers Committee would like to bring federal level police officials and other Mexican law enforcement representatives together with their counterparts in other countries for a series of events designed to share experiences.

In addition, federal officials have already agreed to conduct a diagnostic of the current efforts at accountability, and asked LCHR to advise them on the appropriate methodology. Our approach will combine Mexican circumstance with international experiences, and bring the results of those encounters to Mexican officials, NGOs and the public. The Lawyers Committee has been invited to make similar proposals to officials in charge of the Mexico City’s patrol police.

As part of its effort to develop a resource for comparative experiences, the Lawyers Committee has partnered with the United Nations Development Programme to produce a series of comparative assessments of different accountability mechanisms. LCHR has agreed to oversee this effort, which will produce a basis for comparing different models and identifying key elements of each that might be appropriate for Mexico or elsewhere.

Support rights defenders

Among the Lawyers Committee's missions is to ensure that rights are respected and defended in the United States and around the world, and that human rights defenders are free of threats and harassment. Since the death of prominent human rights lawyer Digna Ochoa last October, the Lawyers Committee has followed the investigation closely. Over the years, we have worked closely with the Centro de Derechos Humanos Miguel Agustín Pro Júarez (Prodh), including Ms. Ochoa.

During the many years of threats against the Prodh, and in the period since Ms. Ochoa’s death, the Lawyers Committee has voiced its singular concern that each of these incidents be thoroughly investigated, and those responsible brought to justice so that this pattern of violence might be ended. We believe that one of the great impediments hampering the investigation into Ochoa’s violent death is the previous failure to investigate promptly the many antecedents when they occurred. This is a particular concern because the pertinent circumstances indicated a significant possibility that State agents were involved in the prior aggressions.

The investigation of Ms. Ochoa’s death has suffered a number of setbacks and been widely criticized by NGOs, members of the Ochoa family, and the media. Although the Lawyers Committee shares some of these concerns - particularly the fear that the investigation may have focused too heavily on the theory that the death was a suicide, to detriment of other lines of inquiry — we have found the Attorney General’s office to be attentive to criticisms and open to suggestions about salvaging what appears to be a very troubled process.
In this context the Lawyers Committee supports the initiative to have the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which has jurisdiction over a petition arising from the death, select a team of international experts to review the investigation and offer assistance in clarifying what occurred. We believe that as the anniversary of her death approaches, it is essential to redouble the investigative efforts, and to do so in an impartial and transparent fashion so Digna Ochoa's family, friends, colleagues and the general public have some assurance that her death has been properly investigated, and that the dignity and justice that she fought to ensure for every Mexican citizen has been accorded to her as well

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