The court gave the Attorney General's Office ten days to comply with the ruling, a deadline that was met at the beginning of this week. Throughout this process, social organizations and international human rights bodies worked on the creation of the foundations of this program between 2019 and 2022. However, it was not until March 2022 that the amparo was presented, as the Attorney General’s Office, along with the Secretariat of Governance, had not published the program.
Aguilar Rodríguez highlighted the importance of litigation, as it was the Judiciary that allowed progress in the publication of the program, which is a fundamental step for public policy regarding torture. However, the deputy director also pointed out that the program has significant shortcomings.
"The program included a strategy to penalize judges who have not protected, adequately investigated, or reported torture, but it does not hold the public prosecutors to the same responsibility, who are usually more involved in torture cases during investigations," explained Aguilar Rodríguez.
She considered that this omission reflects a stance by the Attorney General's Office to delegitimize the Judiciary. Additionally, the deputy director criticized the lack of indicators in the program to assess whether the measures against torture are effective. These indicators were part of previous work with civil society and international bodies, but were not included in the published version of the program.
"It is important that these indicators are eventually included in the program to be able to evaluate its effectiveness," she emphasized. Aguilar Rodríguez also referred to the recent judicial reform, noting that it does not comprehensively address the issue of prosecutions in the country.
María Luisa Aguilar Rodríguez, deputy director of the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center (Centro Prodh), indicated that Mexico has more than 4,500 open investigations for torture, just from 2023. In an interview for Aristegui en Vivo, she highlighted the seriousness of the persistence of this crime in the country, despite efforts to eradicate it.
"Despite efforts to eradicate it, Mexico has more than 4,500 open investigations for torture, just from 2023," asserted the deputy director. Aguilar Rodríguez explained that part of the fight is the publication of the national program to prevent, investigate and punish torture, which had been pending since the enactment of the General Law to Prevent, Investigate and Punish Torture in 2017.
"The program is an administrative tool to generate public policies mandated by the general law to prevent, investigate and punish torture," she stated. According to the law, this program was supposed to be published in December 2017, but the established deadline was not met. The deputy director of Centro Prodh explained that, despite this, various institutions and civil society organizations continued working on the development of the program.
In January of this year, the Tenth Collegiate Court in administrative matters of the first circuit ordered the Attorney General's Office to publish this program. The deputy director of Centro Prodh concluded her intervention by calling for reforms to not only touch upon procedural aspects but also to address the need to eradicate torture in the institutions responsible for investigating crimes, such as the public prosecutors and police bodies.
