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 Editorials | Issues | December 2007 
Mexico Prepares to Overhaul Justice System
 Jason Lange - Reuters
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 |  | Fighting drug cartels, whose turf wars caused the deaths of at least 2,350 people so far this year, has been President Felipe Calderón's top priority since he took office a year ago. |  | |
Mexico City – Mexico's government is pushing a landmark reform through Congress to give police sweeping powers to pursue drug-smuggling mafias while offering defendants some new protections.
Congress was expected to approve a bill this week that would allow police to hold organized crime suspects for up to 80 days without being formally charged, a move that could result more drug traffickers being convicted and imprisoned.
Judges would have to authorize such extended detentions on a case-by-case basis.
A year-old army crackdown on Mexican drug cartels has put hundreds of suspected smugglers in jail, but some have walked free because prosecutors did not have enough time to build a good case, lawmakers said.
“The only way to fight organized crime is to give judicial authorities and prosecutors tools that allow them to be more efficient,” opposition lawmaker Cesar Camacho, who heads the lower house justice committee, said Tuesday.
Mexico's main political parties all back the bill, which cleared a lower house committee by a unanimous vote Monday.
Critics say it goes too far and would violate civil liberties.
“This is the beginning of a police state,” Ernesto Portillo, who heads the Institute for Security and Democracy think-tank in Mexico City, told local radio.
Fighting drug cartels, whose turf wars caused the deaths of at least 2,350 people so far this year, has been President Felipe Calderón's top priority since he took office a year ago. To do so, he deployed 25,000 soldiers to trouble spots.
The United States, the main market for South American cocaine smuggled through Mexico, has pledged $1.4 billion in drug-fighting equipment to help Calderón's crackdown.
This week's proposal includes building special prisons for mafia members where inmates' only contact with the outside world would be through their lawyers, making it harder for drug kingpins to run their cartels from their cells.
Police would get new powers to access suspects' tax and banking information.
The bill, originally submitted by Calderón, would also change many of the ground rules governing Mexican courts, adopting standards common in the United States.
The accused would be considered innocent until proven guilty, and courts would have to phase in oral trials for criminal cases which would be open to the public.
Currently, lawyers present evidence largely in written form in a secretive process that critics say fuels corruption.
The bill would also require police to inform people under arrest that they have a right to remain silent, and would try to improve the quality of public defense lawyers by requiring that their salaries match those of prosecutors.
(Editing by Alan Elsner) |
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