Mexico Senate Approves New National Code for Criminal Procedures Surya Palacios - CNN Mexico
go to original December 7, 2013

The Senate unanimously approved the new National Code of Criminal Procedure, which formalizes the oral trial proceedings in Mexico which were established in the country's Constitution in 2008 and which must be implemented by 2016.

The law establishes that defense attorneys must be given a copy of all documents in the investigation files [of the prosecutors], including photographs, videos, voice recordings, reports and expert evidence. [Previously, prosecutors selected what evidence to present to judges and defense lawyers.] The new Code also introduces the use of new technologies in recording evidence, such as video conferences in "real time or other forms of communication " for the reception and transmission of evidence.

"The recording or reproduction of images or sounds are considered as part of the proceedings and records" of the process.

MV Note: The Mexican Constitution was amended in 2008 to change the trial system from an inquisitorial one - in which prosecution and defense submit evidentiary documents to a judge who decides, in private, on the accused's guilt or innocence - to an adversarial system of public, oral trials in which the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and in which prosecution and defense present their arguments and witnesses testify. There are no juries. Judges continue to decide cases. By law the adversarial system is to be implemented by 2016; to date, however, it has been implemented in fewer than half the states.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

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