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After a legal process of almost two decades, the case of Daniel García and Reyes Alpízar has come to an end. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has communicated this Tuesday its resolution on the complaint made by the two men, who spent 17 years in prison without receiving a sentence. The high international court has condemned Mexico in a historic ruling in which it orders the country to eliminate the controversial figure of informal preventive detention. “The Court declared the international responsibility of the State of Mexico for the violation of the rights to personal integrity, personal liberty, judicial guarantees, equality before the law and judicial protection,” see the sentence.
Daniel García and Reyes Alpízar were arrested in 2002 accused of the murder of PAN councilor María de los Ángeles Tamés. In a judicial process riddled with irregularities, the two men were detained without a judge’s order, detained without a lawyer, tortured, threatened and forced to sign documents. Both have always maintained their innocence. They were released from jail in 2019, with an electronic bracelet. But just two weeks ago, arbitrarily, Daniel García was arrested again and transferred to a prison in the State of Mexico. Now, the Inter-American Court orders the immediate end of any criminal proceedings against them.
This ruling puts the Mexican Constitution on the ropes. In its article 19, the Magna Carta includes the figure of informal preventive detention, a measure that is applied automatically, that is, without a judge deciding, and that sends the defendants directly to jail in a series of crimes in the first phase of the judicial process. In Mexico it is applied for a catalog of 16 crimes ranging from femicide or kidnapping to house robbery. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has become a clear defender of this figure, and in 2019 he even extended it so that an unofficial preventive detention is also applied in three tax crimes. However, after a long discussion, the plenary of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation probably at the end of last year removed them from the list.
Now, the resolution of the Inter-American Court once again recalls the rulings of this figure. “The Court allowed Article 19 of the Constitution to be contrary to the American Convention. The Court notes that this norm does not mention the purposes of preventive detention, nor the procedural dangers that it would seek to prevent, nor the requirement to carry out an analysis of the need for the measure as opposed to others that are harmful to the rights of the person processed, as would the alternative measures to deprivation of liberty. In addition, the preceptivity of the institute, limits the role of the judge and supposes an act that becomes exempt from all real control, preventing the accused from disputing the facts or discussing the foundation, ”says the sentence. Based on this, “with regard to the figure of informal preventive detention, this Court orders the State, as it has done in other cases, to adapt its legal system, including its constitutional provisions, so that it is compatible with the American Convention”.
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