CAT/C/MEX/CO/5-6
Military Justice has not yet been passed. In addition, while taking note of the fact that
military courts have ceded jurisdiction to civilian courts in respect of 231 preliminary
investigations and 66 criminal cases, the Committee is troubled by the fact that, between
2007 and June 2011, the Office of the Military Attorney General opened 3,671
investigations into cases involving violations of civilians’ human rights, with a total of 15
soldiers being convicted of such violations (art. 2, para. 1).
In line with its earlier recommendations in this regard, the Committee urges the State
party to amend its Code of Military Justice, in accordance with the judgements
handed down by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Supreme Court
of Mexico, to preclude the possibility that military courts could have jurisdiction over
cases involving human rights violations and offences against civilians in which
military personnel are involved.
Conditions of detention
19.
While taking note of the information provided by the State party on the effort to
reform the prison system and the recent activation of a fund to provide the financing needed
to improve prison facilities at the state level, the Committee remains concerned by reports
of overcrowding, violence between inmates and inmate self-rule in Mexican prisons and of
extortion of inmates’ family members. The Committee regrets the fact that it does not have
accurate data on the size of the prison population in the various places of detention or upto-date information on action taken in follow-up to the recommendations of the
Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture or to those made by the National Human Rights
Commission in its capacity as the national mechanism for the prevention of torture. It also
regrets that data is lacking on complaints lodged by inmates or their families and on the
outcome of the corresponding investigations (arts. 11, 12, 13 and 16).
The Committee recommends that the State party:
(a)
Step up its efforts to alleviate overcrowding in prisons and other places
of detention by, in particular, making use of non-custodial penalties as provided for in
the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for Non-custodial Measures (the Tokyo
Rules);
(b)
Continue to improve the infrastructure of prisons and other places of
detention, including juvenile treatment centres, and ensure that conditions of
detention in the State party are in accordance with the United Nations Rules for the
Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders
(the Bangkok Rules);
(c)
Develop strategies for reducing violence among inmates and take the
necessary steps to put a stop to inmate self-rule in prisons and to the extortion of
inmates’ family members. The Committee requests the State party to forward to it
information on the results of the application of the Prison Administration Strategy for
2008–2012;
(d)
Take the necessary steps to bolster the work being done by the National
Human Rights Commission as the national mechanism for the prevention of torture
by ensuring that its recommendations and those made by the Subcommittee on
Prevention of Torture are given full effect.
Criminal juvenile justice system
20.
The Committee is concerned that the Federal Justice for Adolescents Act is still
awaiting passage, since this means that a legal and institutional gap continues to exist in the
State party. The Committee regrets the lack of precise statistics on the number of minors
8
GE.12-48654