What President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has called “sabadazos” are a strategy to attack the Federal Judicial Branch (PJF), judges agree, since statistics from the Judicial Council (CJF) indicate that only 16% of people are released on weekends, contrary to what is stated in the discourse issued by the Executive Branch.
Judges consulted by this newspaper indicated that the prosecutors and Security officials are overwhelmed by not working on Saturdays and Sundays and pointed out that as a strategy, the departments related to the justice should work every day, as the Judiciary does.
An analysis by the Judiciary of the orders for immediate release for non-prosecution in the period from 2018 to 2024 in the 42 Federal Criminal Justice Centers, shows that 83.8% of the releases of alleged criminals occurred from Monday to Friday.
Luis Rodríguez Bucio, Undersecretary of the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC), presented a report on July 23, on the so-called sabadazos y reported that from 2018 until 2024 “we see that on weekends we have 192 people deprived of liberty who have been granted freedom between Friday and Sunday, while from Monday to Thursday only 58 have been granted freedom.”
The official listed at least 25 cases of high-profile alleged criminals who have been released on weekends during the current administration.
In this regard, President López Obrador stated that 76% of the cases of releases have been on weekends: “This cannot be allowed. We are talking about judges. So, you go up to the level of magistrates and it is the same, and then the ministers.”
CONTRADICTION
In an internal report, which includes the releases of persons deprived of liberty by judges and magistrates, the Judiciary contradicts the data presented by the federal president, where he points out that only 16% of releases have been on weekends in the last six years, which is legal because in the Judiciary, seven days a week are business days.
According to official statistics from the Judiciary, 7,744 people have been released from Federal Justice Centers between 2018 and 2024, of which 6,490 were ordered from Monday to Friday, while only 1,254 were released on Saturday or Sunday.
In an interview with 24 HOURSChristian Omar González Segovia, a magistrate of the Collegiate Court of the Thirty-First Circuit in San Francisco de Campeche, said that the accusation of releasing criminals on Saturday is a strategy by the President to attack the judges and justify the need for the election of magistrates and judges by popular vote, as well as the removal of those currently in office.
“The Executive Branch has been quite skillful in its discourse, I think its discourse is extremely accessible, but it does not correspond with the objective data in the exercise of its function. In my opinion, it is erroneous to maintain that freedoms should be decreed especially on Saturdays and Sundays.”
The magistrate said that “72% of releases take place from Monday to Thursday, the rest take place on weekends for the simple reason that the Judiciary does not rest on Saturdays or Sundays; in criminal matters every day is a working day.”
The accusations that judges apply Saturday strikes to release criminals, he said, are based “on a subjective assessment that in some cases they have been considered to have a special profile and impact on their security strategy, it has undermined it, but that is a fact that does not correspond with the numbers of the Judiciary, in which it is verifiable that the greatest action and impact on freedoms for defendants occurs during the week.”
The judge pointed out that one of the problems is that the prosecutors and agencies do not work Saturdays and Sundays, “So they are surprised because a release has been decreed and they are not acting promptly enough to request some other precautionary measure or some other form, such as a new arrest warrant, that is what has surprised them.”
He noted that one way to improve and make justice more efficient “Strategically, the prosecutors’ offices understand that they cannot stop working on Saturdays and Sundays. That is what is happening. The Executive Branch is overwhelmed on Saturdays and Sundays because they stop their activities, but the Judicial Branch is not, because every day is a working day.” Judges
The proposed judicial reform “does not represent an accurate diagnosis of what the Judiciary does well; it seeks to destroy everything, without leaving behind what has worked as a judicial career.”
The President and legislators of the 4T “They know how to do politics well, the Judicial Branch does not do politics and does not do it, because its job is to apply justice, the Legislative and Executive powers have chosen to give a political message that often does not correspond to reality, it is mendacious what the sabadazos and the high level of corruption in the Judiciary or that the Judiciary has done nothing for the people.”
For his part, Antonio Ceja Ochoa, magistrate of the First Collegiate Court in Civil Matters of the Fourth Circuit, based in Monterrey, told this newspaper that “criminal judges are working seven days a week, 24 hours a day, because the charges are sent by the prosecutors and if the deadlines expire on Saturday or Sunday, the resolution must be issued, it is legitimate because the Constitution says so.”
He added that “the jurisdictional function does not stop, for example, if on Saturday a person asks the judge for conditional release, he has to grant it at that time, whether it is 2 in the morning, so I think that this is incomplete information and the nature of criminal proceedings that do not depend on a day or time must be taken into account.”
He explained that the prosecutors send the files of charges and the judges must act before the constitutional deadline expires, “be it Saturday or Sunday, whether there are many or few liberties, so the Saturday attacks are something very incomplete.”
Context
Following the release of former Puebla governor Mario Marín Torres, who was granted house arrest last weekend by a judge in Quintana Roo, the former president left the Almoloya de Juárez prison, giving President López Obrador the opportunity to attack the judiciary once again.
“There is the case of another sabadazoof a judge who is granting freedom to Mr. Marín, who was governor of Puebla.”
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2024-08-16 09:18:41