With 407 votes in favor, the Chamber of Deputies approved on February 5, the National Code for Criminal Process (CNPP). Although the discussion within Congress and in commissions of the aforementioned Chamber had been restricted due to a political agreement amongst majority party forces (arguing the urgency of unblocking a process that had already been largely discussed in other legislative stances), the formal emergence of CNPP is generally considered to be an advance. However, will CNPP be the measure needed to transform the criminal justice system in Mexico?
Firstly, the birth of CNPP should be contextualized. The homologation of the criminal process was one of the goals of the 2008 criminal reform and, despite that, it is now promoted as the ideal tool to once again boost and unify the reform’s implementation process. The idea of CNPP barely surfaced a few years ago, as a response to the legislative chaos that meant leaving each state to decide its own accusatory criminal system. In that sense, CNPP can be said to be an adequate project that will homogenize the stages and timing of criminal procedure in Mexico and will avoid the unjustified differences existing between local codes. Nevertheless, the absence of the Chamber of Deputies as a reviewing legislative institution has left some solvable loose ends. A relevant example is article 303, which establishes the faculty of Public Attorney’s Offices to request the geographical location of an individual that is not under judiciary control. Like the latter, other issues could end up as controversies in the Supreme Court of Justice.
Although adequate, the initiative of the Code comes late. The presentation of CNPP six years later after the issuing of the reform is evidence of the lack of planning that has been the characteristic of the criminal justice system’s transformation started in 2008. The ideal scenario would involve having the 2008 reform accompanied by several needed changes that would allow it to present several initiatives (including CNPP) as to homologate justice administration in Mexico. The Code’s late arrival will not only imply a re-capacitation of all operators of the justice system, but also simultaneity with criminal processes in the country. The new criminal process, introduced by CNPP, will coexist with local procedures for several years, at least until all cases that were processed under the old systems have expired. In some cases, such as Nuevo León, up to four systems will coexist: the traditional process, the mixed process, the local accusatory process and the national accusatory process.
Beyond the benefits that have been promoted with CNPP, what remains true is that the aforementioned instrument will not be enough to correct the deficiencies of justice procurement in Mexico. The Code will manage to homologate the rules of the game, but it will be incapable of guaranteeing by itself that operators will act in a different manner. The arrival of this Code should be accompanied with modifications in the inside of the operational institutions of the criminal justice system and this is not certain by any means. For instance, in some states, the institution that is in charge of prosecuting crimes is the Public Attorney’s Office, while in some others it is the sole responsibility of the District Attorney’s Office. This is not a slight difference, since their organization and faculties vary greatly. In that sense, there are lots of missing pieces.
In the end, what is hidden is a debate on how ideal the federalism can be for Mexico, specifically in the criminal justice system. The Code emerges as part of the centralizing tendency of the current federal administration but all of the other system components – from substantial codes to institutions – remain under the logic of federalism. It will be interesting to see how this strange mix will result.
CIDAC
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