After meeting with 220 women prisoners in the Santa Martha Acatitla prison, the president of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN), Arturo Zaldívar, said that he verified the vices and failures suffered by women prisoners.
“I verified the vices of the Mexican penal system that I have been pointing out for a long time. The need to review informal preventive detention, to establish clearer criteria for justified preventive detention, that we have to banish the fact that there are so many long processes, and that people can spend 10 or 15 years in prison without having been sentenced; the drama of women in prison, those who get pregnant in prison (…) the fabricated crimes, the violations of due process, the failures of public ministries, prosecutors, police officers, judges, ”he referred.
In the parking lot of the women’s prison, Minister Zaldívar said that the former Secretary of State, Rosario Robles, who has been imprisoned for two years accused of various crimes related to corruption, was present at the meeting. The minister said that the former official did not ask him to intercede in her criminal proceedings, and gave him a folder with general matters, which she will analyze.
“Ms. Rosario Robles was at the meeting; she took the floor, she did not discuss her personal case, she raised the general and serious issues that concern women, and it was she who sent me these thematic formats to analyze issues such as informal preventive detention, justified, due process, judging with perspective of gender,” he said.
Zaldívar promised the group of women to discuss particular issues with them, and informed them that next week lawyers from the Federal Institute of Public Defense will be in the prison to eventually take on some cases. Zaldívar indicated that this Thursday she will meet with the head of the Government of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, to follow up on issues related to her visit to the prison, and “try to reduce this drama of justice.”
The minister said that two of his requests that he made to the prison authorities of Mexico City for this visit, was that women prisoners be allowed to speak without limitations, and that this not generate reprisals for them.
Asked if he will visit other prisons in the country or if the Judicial Power of the Federation (PJF) will offer support from federal lawyers in other states, the minister replied that for now it is only in Mexico City, although he said that the possibility is not ruled out. that there be dialogue with other governors of the country.
“It is the first time that a president of the Court comes to a prison, well yes, very historic, but if we do not generate results, measures, it is still an anecdote. And this visit is not about me, it is about the women, it is not about me. And it is about the thousands of innocent people who are in the prisons of Mexico and who require that we review the laws and the Constitution, especially in the matter of reviewing informal preventive detention. If this visit were about me, it would be simply a most stupid and frivolous vanity, it is about women, and to the best of my ability, not only my powers, but what I can do to support other instances, I have assumed
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a commitment to them that I am going to honor,” he said.
She indicated that she agreed with the women prisoners that in the kiosk located inside the Supreme Court, the handicrafts made by the women of the Santa Martha Acatitla prison will be sold.
During his visit, the minister was accompanied by his wife, as well as Alejandra Spitalier Peña, Secretary General of the SCJN; Fabiana Estrada, coordinator of Advisors to the Presidency of the Court; Carlos Alpízar, Secretary General of the Presidency of the Council of the Federal Judiciary, among others.
Jorge Monroy