Crime sans punishment in Mexico

The Mexican Supreme Court of Justice has decided that in cases of human rights violations, it will limit its action to conducting an inquiry, and will abstain from recommending sentences. Two state governors and several police chiefs will undoubtedly breathe easier after the announcement. Prosecuting cases and determining the penalties due for human rights crimes are powers and duties of the prosecutors and judges concerned, and not of the Supreme Court, a majority of its members decided. "The self-limitation decided by the court is bad news, because it leaves the door open for impunity, which is rampant in some states," Edgar Cortez, the executive secretary of the All Rights for All Network, which groups 54 Mexican human rights organizations, told IPS. The decision was made public on Aug. 14, after the 11 Supreme Court justices held two private sessions to debate the scope and parameters of their power to analyze serious cases of human rights violations, whether brought by complainants, or on behalf of the public. The Supreme Court was empowered to take a hand in high-profile human rights cases in the early 1990s. But until June this year, it had only exercised this prerogative once, in 1996, when it investigated the case of a massacre of 17 campesinos (small farmers) in the southern state of Guerrero which had been carried out by police the previous year. In this instance the court concluded that the local authorities were responsible, but it did not stipulate penalties. The debate about how to handle other cases arose two months ago, when the Supreme Court magistrates decided to carry out an inquiry into complaints of abuses committed by the authorities during a May-November 2006 social uprising in the southern state of Oaxaca. The governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz, has been accused by civil society organizations of being authoritarian and corrupt. Also two months ago, the Supreme Court agreed to review the legal action against journalist Lydia Cacho, who exposed the existence of a child sex abuse ring. The charges against Cacho were apparently trumped up by the governor of the central state of Puebla, Mario Marín, in collusion with a businessman named in her book, and by Puebla judges. Ruiz and Marín, both members of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), must be sighing with relief, because beyond the Supreme Court there does not seem to be any further institutional force that can punish them, Cortez said. The PRI, which governed Mexico for seven decades until December 2000, is still a force to be reckoned with in Congress, which would either have to strip governors Ruiz and Marín of their immunity from prosecution in order for them to be tried, or vote to impeach them. The ruling National Action Party (PAN) also needs the votes of PRI legislators to push through its draft laws. "Since the Supreme Court decided that it will not enforce any rulings, but only investigate and issue a report, it appears that cases like Ruiz and Marín's will be left in suspense," said Cortez. Not all the members of the Supreme Court were in favor of limiting their interventions to investigating and reporting. Some, including Justice Juan Silva, said it was necessary to provide clear recommendations on penalties. But this approach lost out when it came to the vote. The Supreme Court will be investigating governors Ruiz and Marín in the coming month, and have also agreed to investigate the events at San Salvador Atenco, a farming town nine miles east of the Mexican capital. Local and federal police clashed violently with residents of San Salvador Atenco in May 2006. In the course of their operation, the police arrested more than 200 people, searched homes without any warrants, and sexually harassed women, among other irregular actions documented by human rights groups. The day before the police operation, organized local residents, who in 2002 had successfully blocked plans to build an airport on their land, clashed with police over the eviction of flower vendors from the market. According to the Supreme Court, there is evidence that abuses were committed in San Salvador Atenco, which have gone unpunished by the local justice system. On this basis, they agreed to launch an inquiry. But even if they do eventually find that authorities and judges at lower levels behaved in an irregular manner, they will not demand or recommend particular sentences. It is only prosecutors and judges who should try, convict and sentence in these cases, in their view. So if the suspects are governors or legislators who enjoy immunity from prosecution, it is Congress that must vote to withdraw that privilege, in order for a political, civil or criminal trial to be carried out, they decided. Having defined the scope of its interventions in serious cases of human rights violations, the Supreme Court is now discussing regulatory guidelines for any future investigation of this sort.