Norma Piña presents an alternative proposal to the reform of the Judicial Branch

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The Comprehensive Reform to the Justice System in Mexico proposed by the President of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, Norma Piña, seeks to include the voices of both members of the Judicial Branch and social organizations.

The Comprehensive Reform to the Justice System in Mexico seeks to include the voices of both members of the Judicial Branch and social organizations.

Minister Norma Piña, president of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) and the Federal Judicial Council (CJF) announced the Comprehensive Reform to the Justice System in Mexico, an alternative proposal to the reform of the Judicial Branch promoted by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and which is being discussed in the commissions of the Senate of the Republic.

The text of the Comprehensive Reform to the Justice System in Mexico proposes a security and justice system that seeks to include the voices of both members of the Judicial Branch and social organizations.

“The demolition of the Judicial Branch is not the solution. Our resistance is not based on our present, our commitment is to the generations to come,” said Minister Piña.

The proposals were grouped into the following areas: public safety, criminal justice, local judicial powers, ethics, and institutional legitimacy, as well as corruption and nepotism.

The president of the Supreme Court called on legislators and actors in the justice system to consider the proposals collected in a document prepared by various members of the Judicial Branch.

The 272-page document containing the 66 initiatives of the Comprehensive Reform of the Justice System in Mexico is on the website of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation.

Regarding ethics and judicial legitimacy

1. Conduct a critical review of the flow of judicial processes to ensure a perspective of justice focused on the people.
2. Standardize the rules of the judicial career in the judicial powers of the country.
3. Develop training and evaluation programs in knowledge and skills for ethics and institutional legitimacy. In terms of strengthening local judicial powers
4. Strengthen the institutional capacity of local judicial powers to meet citizens’ demands for justice.
5. Implement the judicial career and selection mechanisms for all judicial positions.
6. Allocate the necessary resources to implement oral proceedings in civil and family justice, as well as consolidate oral proceedings in commercial justice.
7. Consolidate labor justice.
8. Implement effective mechanisms for judicial discipline.
9. Recover and strengthen local constitutionalism.
10. Increase the economic resources of local criminal justice.

In terms of substantive and procedural regulatory design

11. Repeal legal figures, such as pretrial detention, which promote arbitrary deprivation of liberty.
12. Harmonize the classification of the crime of femicide, as well as standardize the applicable investigation protocols.
13. Expand and strengthen the scope of the amparo trial in matters of reparations and suspensions.
14. Generate clear regulatory frameworks aimed at ensuring compliance with court rulings.
15. Strengthen procedural figures that promote collective access to justice.
16. Generate regulatory, budgetary, and institutional conditions to launch itinerant national justice days.
17. Guarantee that a percentage not less than 2% of the federal and state budgets be assigned to the judicial powers.
18. Design and issue a General Law on Public Defenders.

Regarding public security

19. Reorient public security policies, promote their demilitarization, and guarantee citizen participation in their design.
20. Strengthen the security, operation, and accessibility of all authorities that carry out security work to the National Registry of Detentions.
21. Modernize Command and Control Centers.
22. Establish a national certification mechanism for police institutions.
23. Implement a comprehensive strategy to combat human trafficking.
24. Consider abandoning the punitive approach of drug use and drug dealing policy and seek alternatives for detention in this context.
25. Simplify and harmonize the activation procedures of the AMBER Alert Program and the Alba Protocol.
26. Develop a national prevention and protection system for all justice operators.
27. Review and reform the regulatory and institutional framework of the criminal policy in force in the country.
28. Improve access to public information and mechanisms for the evaluation of security institutions.
29. Implement effective measures to improve firearms control.
30. Ensure compliance with the constitutional mandate and the strengthening of civilian institutions.

In criminal investigation

31. Investigate human trafficking through international cooperation.
32. Establish a global and comprehensive strategy for searching for and investigating cases of disappearance.
33. Ensure the national standardization of investigation instruments.
34. Establish strict selection systems for the staff of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office.
35. Promote the establishment of a national mechanism for training and certification of prosecutors and investigative police.
36. Incorporate the detention and disappearance of migrants into national records.
37. Promote a national policy for the prevention of disappearances from a structural perspective.
38. Encourage the articulation of reliable and constantly updated statistical systems.
39. Explore the establishment of an extraordinary mechanism for truth, justice, and reparations.
40. Pursue crimes with an analysis of the investigation and prosecution of criminal phenomena and structures as a whole, not in a fragmented manner.
41. Develop and implement strategic criminal prosecution policies in federal and state prosecutors’ offices.

Regarding forensic and expert services

42. Create a General Law on Forensic Services that establishes a national institution for forensic services.
43. Strengthen institutional capacities in forensic matters and expert services.
44. Ensure that the Extraordinary Forensic Identification Mechanism has a budget, organic structure, and independence.
45. Establish and guarantee the operation of databases in forensic matters and expert services at the national level.

Regarding public defense

46. Strengthen public defense services.
47. Increase the staff of public defense offices.
48. Guarantee technical and management autonomy of public defense offices in the country.
49. Ensure the necessary budget allocations.
50. Uniformly regulate and consolidate the career of civil service.
51. Establish clear and broad powers to provide legal advice and assistance in all matters.
52. Create independent areas or units of investigation and expert services in each public defender’s office.
53. Create standardized bases and protocols for attention and action.
54. Design efficient communication mechanisms for channeling cases between public defenders’ offices.
55. Implement a policy of attention to populations with difficult access or in vulnerable situations.
56. Implement a comprehensive policy of attention to victims of human rights violations.
57. Other additional actions to strengthen public defender services in Mexico.
58. Incorporate indirect victims in the search processes, as well as in judicial processes.
59. Strengthen the medical attention provided by victim assistance commissions.
60. Reform the system of immediate aid within the victim assistance policy.
61. Create reporting and protection mechanisms for all vulnerable groups within prisons.
62. Strengthen the independence of judges of execution.
63. Implement interpretation and cultural mediation services for indigenous communities.
64. Train judges of execution, as well as penitentiary staff, in human rights issues and differentiated approaches.
65. Strengthen psychological care and comprehensive health programs within detention centers.
66. Adapt spaces in penitentiary centers to meet the differentiated needs of different population groups.

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