Mexican Soldiers Accused of Forced Disappearance to Be Tried in Civilian Courts Victor Vallinas and Andrea Becerril - La Jornada
go to original February 14, 2014

At the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons, the Senate unanimously approved the disbanding of the reserve forces assembled by the Mexican government. Per the resolution, soldiers that abducted persons in the so-called “dirty war” in the 70s and early 80s will be subject to trial in civil courts. The bill has been sent to the Executive to be signed into law.

The approved legislation stresses that those deemed responsible for the acts constituting the crime of forced disappearance of persons will only be subject to trial by the common law jurisdictions of each state, and not by any sort of special jurisdiction, particularly the military...

Those acts constituting forced disappearance will not be considered to have been committed as military acts by the army.

Also unanimously approved was another bill disbanding the reserves drawn up by the government of the Republic in Article 62 of the Declaration for Recognition of the Jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (ICHR) over the cases resulting from the application of Article 33 of the Mexican Constitution.

As a result, the Executive will be unable to expel foreign nationals from Mexican soil without first trying them in court and affording them the right to a jury.

This bill was also sent to the Executive to be signed into law.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Translated by Kevin Chao

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!