PGR restructuration: correcting the incorrigible?

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political-analisis

Jesús Murillo Karam has insisted on the precarious state in which the Attorney’s General Office (PGR) was when he took office. He has frequently referred to abuses that ocurred with legal instruments such as arraigo and protected witnesses. His comments have been confirmed by several judicial decisions that have knocked down iconic cases from the former PAN administration. In past days, Murillo Karam has hit the nail in the head by regarding the institution’s functions as a “perverse circle”. At the same time, he announced that he will meet the Senate’s Justice and Public Security Commissions to show a plan of integral restructuration with the aim of correcting the inherited shortcomings. Given its content, the project seems logical and desirable. Who wouldn’t want, for example, better qualified public ministries, investigators and experts? On the other hand, it should not to be forgotten that, if approved, such a plan would be a master political blow to those who operated and tolerated a corrupt scheme in the past. Beyond the advantages of restructuration (regardless if it’s applied in the end or not), PRI continues with its strategy of building the narrative of bringing order to a half-ruined house.

In Murillo Karam’s plan proposals such as the creation of a financial Attorney Office with the aim of attacking the resources of organized crime (an interesting turn that certainly is different from PAN), as well as the regionalization of PGR (to adjust itself to a security sectorization). It also adds the possibility of implementing a policy of crime priorization in order to prosecute those that generate the greater social impact. The rest of the proposals are platitudes – still necessary though – : improvement of professional service, creation of monitoring mechanisms and professionalization of public officers. It still remains to be seen if these changes will really improve PGR’s performance, reduce the impunity indexes and most importantly, will generate trust in the everyday citizens.

An absent matter in this project is PGR’s autonomy, which has been demanded by its instigators as a way to avoid the political use of justice from the Executive Power. However, even if this issue will sooner or later come back to public debate, it will not necessarily mean a move towards an improvement on procurement of justice, much less in the decrease of its factional use. It’s a cultural problem. Words – and projects – are carried away by the wind.

While it is true that PGR has been in a series of mistakes, abuses and absurds throughout Felipe Calderón’s administration, it is well known that corruption, the factional use in the procurement of justice and all other misdemeanors are not exclusive from the former government nor Federal authority. In Mexico, all these vices have been present for decades (maybe even centuries). That is why it is worth to ask if the announcement and eventual application of this so-called restructuration will transcend its political intentions and shall become a step towards a greater institutionalization of the main State instrument to guarantee the rule of law. To evaluate this, it will be important not only to build and apply performance indexes that look good in academic papers, but to perceive these changes in our everyday lives.

CIDAC

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