Mexico

National Criminal Justice Reform

Mexico: Promoting alternatives to pre-trial detention
This is a three-year pilot project designed to reduce, rationalize the use of, and promote alternatives to, pre-trial detention practices in Mexico City and in the northern city of Monterrey. As in many other countries, in Mexico pre-trial detention is often imposed in discriminatory fashion, with the disproportionate burden borne by persons allegedly involved in petty offences with limited opportunity to contest the charges against them. Our principal partner, the NGO Renace, has for many years provided bail assistance and supervision, and counseling to arrested defendants. These efforts have yielded a decrease in the number who fail to appear at trial and a decline in recidivism rates. This initiative aims to bolster Renace’s efforts to document and enhance its operating model and its impact on pre-trial detention practices—with a view to possible replication in other parts of Mexico. In addition, we are pursuing a cost-benefit analysis of Mexican pre-trial detention practices to ensured informed consideration of the social, economic and health consequences of pre-trial detention. Finally, in an effort to raise public awareness of the impact of pre-trial detention on the lives and life chances of innocent persons, the Justice Initiative is commissioning a series of personal histories about individuals detained while awaiting trial who have never been convicted. The case studies, plus a general background chapter on the misuse of, and alternatives to, pre-trial detention in Mexico, have been drafted by Mexican journalists and are published and disseminated in newspaper and journal articles, as policy papers and in book form. Read Los Mitos de la prisión preventiva en México.

Freedom of Information (FOI)

Mexico: FOI implementation
Since shortly before Mexico’s nationwide FOI law went into effect in 2003, the Justice Initiative has worked closely with NGO partner LIMAC in preparing for and promoting the law’s implementation. The Justice Initiative has assisted in training Mexican government officials in complying with the new legislation, by leading two teams of international experts (from countries such as the United Kingdom, Hungary, Sweden and Slovakia) with experience in applying FOI legislation in other contexts. Our project has engaged in public education about FOI in the NGO sector, and has provided legal assistance to human rights NGOs and advised on litigation to challenge refusals to provide information.

Legal Capacity Development

Mexico Fellows
In 2004, the Justice Initiative extended to Latin America its Human Rights Fellowship Program, which brings young lawyers for one year to study human rights at the Central European University in Budapest, followed by a year working in a sponsoring NGO in their home country on a Justice Initiative project. In addition, as part of our Practicing Fellows Program, a young Mexican lawyer who has previous experience both on criminal justice reform and at the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, has been recruited to work on our project promoting alternatives to pre-trial detention in Mexico.

Mexico: Clinical legal education
While legal clinics are well-established in parts of Latin America, Mexico is unusual in that, despite its long border with the U.S., there has until recently been only one live-client university-based clinic—at the law faculty of the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) in Mexico City. To encourage further development of clinical education in Mexico, the Justice Initiative has convened two meetings in the past year for representatives of 20 law schools in Mexico, together with experts from Argentina, Chile and the United States. As Mexican universities develop clinics, we will include Mexican teachers and clinical administrators in our annual worldwide teacher training and clinical development workshops.