Friday, July 11, 2025

Military not required to inform police of arrests, Supreme Court rules

The Supreme Court (SCJN) has ruled that the military doesn’t need to report arrests it makes to civilian security authorities.

The court’s ruling on Tuesday came in response to a claim of unconstitutionality filed by the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) against part of the National Law on the Registration of Arrests.

The CNDH challenged the law on the basis that it excused the military of the responsibility to report the arrest of presumed criminals. The commission argued that the right to legal certainty, among other rights, and the principle of legality could be violated by the absence of that responsibility.

However, the SCJN ruled that under the National Law on the Registration of Arrests, the military itself is obliged to immediately register the detentions they complete in the relevant database. Therefore, the armed forces must be given access to the arrest registry, the court said in a statement.

It ruled that the military — which has been authorized to carry out public security tasks until 2028 — “is not obliged to give notice of an arrest to a police authority so that said authority creates the registration.”

Independent Senator Emilio Álvarez Icaza slammed the Supreme Court’s ruling in a Twitter post.

“The @SCJN established today that the armed forces … [carrying out] security tasks are not obliged to inform a police authority of the arrest of a person. And it leaves the registration [of an arrest] up to the goodwill of the military. Military opacity to violate human rights now has legal endorsement. Grave,” he wrote.

The non-government organization Human Rights Watch recently warned that the federal government’s militarized security policy risks facilitating abuses by security forces while failing to reduce violent crime.

However, a poll conducted late last year indicated that almost three-quarters of Mexicans agree with the government’s plan to continue using the armed forces for public security tasks until 2028.

With reports from El Universal, El Financiero and Infobae 

Have something to say? Paid Subscribers get all access to make & read comments.
A small plane flies over the ocean

How the Mexican security minister’s slip of the tongue rankled Salvadoran President Bukele

2
President Bukele took exception after García Harfuch's identified a drug-smuggling plane as coming from El Salvador.
gold bars

Highway robbery near Guadalajara nets 6 million pesos worth of gold and silver

0
Such open-road heists have risen in frequency recently and could pose a threat to potential investors otherwise attracted by nearshoring opportunities.
Security chief Omar García Harfuch, Attorney General Gertz and other Mexian officials sit on a stage in front of a banner reading "National Strategy against Extortion" in spanish

Authorities launch national strategy against extortion to tackle a pernicious and widespread crime

1
The strategy contemplates new laws that would force states to investigate the crime, even when victims are too afraid to make an official report.
BETA Version - Powered by Perplexity