success of the investigation and the protection of persons or legal goods are not legitimate ends).
Those same problematic issues were repeated in the text of Article 16 of the Federal Constitution. 158
B.2. On pre-trial detention
212. With respect to pre-trial detention, Articles 161 and 168 of the Federal Code of Criminal
Procedure continue to be in force with the same text as when the events occurred. In addition, Article
19 of the Federal Constitution 159 and Article 3 of the Federal Law against Organized Crime establish
that the offense of organized crime, as well as that mentioned in Article 2(o), 2(o)(Bis) and 2(o)(Ter)
of that law, impose pre-trial detention sua sponte (supra para. 46).
213. The Court notes that the problematic issues that have been indicated in the chapter on the
merits still persist and were even amplified in the later norms. Those aspects are a) they do not refer
to the purposes of pre-trial detention nor to the procedural dangers to be guarded against (supra para.
106) in cases of pre-trial detention sua sponte for offenses related to organized crime; b) nor do they
propose analyzing the need of the measure compared with others less harmful to the rights of the
persons being tried, such as alternative measures of deprivation of liberty (supra para. 111) and c) that
it necessarily establishes the application of pre-trial detention for offenses with a certain gravity once
the material assumptions are established, without having to analyze the need for the precautionary
measure in view of the particular circumstances of the case (supra para. 108).
B.3. Conclusion
214. In view of the foregoing, while it is true that the laws used to apply arraigo and pre-trial
detention to the events of this case has varied, the Court has no doubt that the aspects that make it
incompatible with the Convention, as has been pointed out supra, continue in their latest texts. These
aspects lead the Court to declare that the norms that govern the institutions of arraigo (Article 133
bis Federal Code of Criminal Procedure and Article 12 of the Federal Law against Organized Crime)
and of pre-trial detention (Article 161 of the Federal Code of Criminal Procedure) were contrary to the
Convention and to the State’s obligation to adapt its domestic provisions, pursuant to Article 2 of the
Convention.
215. The Court recalls that a State’s general duty under Article 2 includes both the adoption of
measures that derogate all norms and practices that imply a violation of the guarantees set forth in
158
The law on arraigo has been complemented subsequent to the events of the case by Article 16 of the Constitution of
Mexico, which reads as follows (supra para. 38): “The judicial authority, at the request of the Public Prosecutor's Office and in
the case of organized crime offenses, may order the arraigo of a person, with the modalities of place and time specified by law,
but may not exceed forty days, provided that it is necessary for the success of the investigation, the protection of persons or
legal assets, or when there is a well-founded risk that the accused will evade the action of justice. This period may be extended,
provided that the Public Prosecutor's Office proves that the causes that gave rise to it still exist. In any case, the total duration
of the arraigo may not exceed eighty days.”
159
Article 16 establishes that:
“Detentions before a judicial authority in excess of seventy-two hours, counted from the moment the accused is presented
before the authority, are prohibited unless formal charges are presented indicating the place, time and circumstances of such
crime, as well as the evidence that a event has occurred that the law classifies as a crime and that there exists the probability
that the accused has committed or participated in its commission.”
The Public Prosecutor’s Office may request that the judge order pre-trial detention when other precautionary measures are not
sufficient to ensure the presence of the accused at his trial, the development of the investigation, the protection of the victim,
witnesses or the community, as well as when the accused is on trial or has been previously convicted for having committed a
willful crime. The judge may order preventive detention sua sponte in cases of sexual abuse or violence against minors,
organized crime, willful homicide, feminicide, rape, kidnapping, human trafficking, home robberies, use of social programs for
electoral purposes, corruption through unlawful enrichment and the abuse of office, robbery of trucks in any of its forms, crimes
in the area of hydrocarbons, petroleum products or petrochemicals, the forced disappearance of persons and disappearances
committed by persons, crimes committed by violent means such as firearms and explosives designed for the exclusive use of
the Army, Navy and Air Force, as well as serious crimes determined by law against the security of the nation, of the free
development of the personality and of health.
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