Mexican Justice System:
The Rules of the Game Invite Abuse

Police (and the soldiers who increasingly work among them) lack the training, discipline and resources to carry out proper investigations, yet are expected to produce evidence and suspects for the justice system. They resolve this dilemma by illegal means: beatings and fabricated evidence, abetted by courts that look the other way and enforce rules designed to make it hard for these practices to be prevented, detected or documented.

In its nine years in existence, the publicly-funded Mexico City Human Rights Commission consistently has found that violations within the criminal justice system account for the largest source - if not the absolute majority - of all human rights violations that take place within the city. In fact, the commission’s records show that complaints are filed against the Attorney General’s office - which houses both prosecutors and police - far more often than any other arm of municipal government.

Legalized Injustice, a joint report of the Lawyers Committee and the Mexico City-based Centro Miguel Agustín Pro Júarez documents the core dilemma of human rights abuses in the criminal process. Violations of basic rights occur, not simply because the system lacks the will or resources to punish those officials who break the rules, but because the laws themselves invite, and sometimes even impel them. Most of the problems illustrated in the report reflect the operation of the rules, not the exception —hence, legalized injustice.

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