MORENA party passes bill broadening pretrial detention through Mexico’s lower house of Congress

Mexico City, Mexico – With an overwhelming majority, members of Mexico’s ruling MORENA party in the lower house of Congress voted to broaden the list of offenses classified as grounds for automatic pretrial detention.

With 335 votes in favor and 108 against, Lower House MORENA representatives and allies fast-tracked a bill that adds crimes such as extortion, trafficking of fentanyl and its precursors, and sexual violence offenses to the list of those applicable for pretrial detention.

The judicial mechanism allows a suspect to be jailed for up to two years, however, in practice, suspects have been imprisoned far longer, and it is estimated that 40% of the country’s prison population — or around 90,000 people — remain incarcerated without a conviction. 

As of today, Mexican law recognizes crimes such as intentional homicide, rape, kidnapping, crimes committed with violent means such as weapons and explosives, those that threaten national security, the free development of personality, and public health, as well as those related to organized crime as pertinent for pretrial detention.

The reform would include pretrial detention automatically in cases of extortion, illegal activities related to fentanyl and other synthetic drugs, as well as in serious crimes such as smuggling, and any activity related to false tax invoices.

However, human rights groups have warned that this last ratification of pretrial detention law is further endangering the human rights of the Mexican people.

“The reform approved in the lower house regarding pretrial detention is harmful and regressive. Automatically detaining individuals violates human rights, discourages the capacity to investigate crimes, and disregards international rulings and recommendations,” wrote the Human Rights body of the UN on X.

The bill was inherited from Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s previous administration, who had pushed a package of 20 constitutional reforms earlier this year while still in office.

With a resounding majority in both chambers of Congress that it gained following June’s general elections, López Obrador’s MORENA party has been capable of fast-tracking the 20 reforms promised by the former president, including the adhesion of the National Guard to the military, the election of Supreme Court justices by popular vote, and now, possibly the reform to pretrial detention.

The initiative passed by the lawmakers in the lower house will move to the Senate next week, where MORENA and its allies have the 87 votes needed to fast-track the reform and enshrine it in the Constitution.

With stark levels of impunity, pretrial detentions have been ruled as an infringement on human rights, such was the ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR).

Moreover, international human rights watchdogs such as the World Justice Project, which analyzes the strength of justice systems globally, reported that Mexico’s criminal justice system ranks 132nd out of 142 countries.