145. The Court points out that the expert Esteban Gilberto Arcos Cortés mentioned the importance of arraigo as “a tool of investigation” for certain offenses related to organized crime. He indicated that arraigo of a precautionary nature implied that when the GPR “did not have the necessary elements to present a case before a jurisdictional body, […] it requested a non-penitentiary detention in determined places while it gathered the necessary elements to attribute the acts before the jurisdictional body.” 120 There is no doubt that the purpose sought by arraigo is to restrict the liberty of a person suspected of a crime in order to complete the means of evidence and eventually make a formal charge. It bears repeating that an investigation cannot be a legitimate purpose to deprive a person of liberty without a conviction and that the authorities cannot deprive liberty of an accused to then investigate, but rather such a deprivation is possible when the persecuting body has sufficient substantive elements and when the precautionary measure is suitable, necessary and proportionate to stave off the procedural dangers that are non-appearance in the proceedings or obstructing the means of proof. 121 146. The Court is clear that, in the manner in which the arraigo is conceived in the Mexican legal order, the accused are instrumentalized and become a means to obtain evidence regarding their responsibility. The expert Luis Raúl González Pérez illustrated this idea when he affirmed that “arraigo also affects the right to defense, since the persons know that they are being investigated and linked to the commission of a crime, but instead of gathering the elements for their eventual defense, they are converted into mere spectators enclosed in the ministerial activity.” 122 c. On the need for arraigo 147. In the two preceding sections, the Court concluded that the institution of arraigo established in Article 12 of the Federal Law of 1996 and Article 133 bis of the Federal Code of 1999 infringed the substantive assumptions that must be complied with in order to apply that type of restrictive measure to personal liberty and to the presumption of innocence. In turn, it indicated that Article 12 did not comply with a legitimate purpose to restrict the liberty of a person in the framework of criminal proceedings. The Court finds it clear that, being a pre-procedural measure that restricts liberty in order to investigate, it contravened the terms of the Convention infringing, per se, the rights to personal liberty and to the presumption of innocence of those subjected to arraigo. 148. The foregoing is sufficient to conclude that the institution of arraigo included in those two norms did not comply with the elements that the authorities must take into account when restricting personal liberty. Therefore, since it is a measure that restricts liberty that has a purpose that is clearly against the terms of the Convention, the Court holds that it is not in order to continue examining the other elements of the test of proportionality to which reference has been made. Cf. Written version of the expert opinion of Esteban Gilberto Arcos Cortés, offered at the public hearing (evidence file, f. 31266 et seq.). 120 121 It should also be recalled that during the public hearing this expert indicated that arraigo “conformed to due process” and that from the moment that persons under arraigo enter the Federal Center of Arraigo “they are informed that they are at the disposal of the jurisdictional body, they are read their rights, they are medically examined and, at the same time, they are told that ‘you are not nor were not even an accused person, you are here while an investigation is being conducted but you can ask for cigarettes, you can have a television set, you just have to be here.’” The expert mentioned that “if this institution did not exist, as they say in Mexico, you put on your shoes, you leave and you’re never seen again and, of course, that scares you.” He claimed that “this means that they have the person here” although he affirmed that it is not deprivation of liberty “because […] you have a phone, you have the opportunity to go out and smoke as many times as you wish” although he recognized, in response to a question from the Court, that the persons under arraigo in that center cannot leave. The expert added, alluding to a visit that he made to such a center, that “they are free to go out and smoke a cigarette, they are in a room that has a bed, they can have a TV, a DVD, family visits, a place to play if they are minors, a recreation center with basketball courts, soccer fields […] and, at the same time, they have the right to call whomever they wish for nine minutes every day and can visit and receive visits including their defense.” Cf. Written version of the expert opinion of Luis Raúl González Pérez, offered at the public hearing (evidence file, f. 675 et seq.). 122 35