Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on May 11th, 2010

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

I want to thank you for your good work.

I would like to ask whether you have, in Mexico, access to senior government officials to plead the cause of those individuals you're defending.

[Father Luis Arriaga Valenzuela, S.J.]

Yes. We are an organization that has advocated through the institutional routes. In other words, we assume cases of violations of human rights and we advocate so the Mexican courts will give us access to justice. Yes, in that case we advocate for a strategy in litigation, making use of the highest standards of protection in human rights, making appropriate use of arguments and instruments that the constitution and legislation in Mexico provide us. That's why we advocate along these lines.

We also believe in dialogue, which should be constructed in a healthy and respectful manner between the government and civil society. We advocate for this. The problem is that on occasion there's no adequate situation to favour this type of dialogue. That's why we believe this dialogue should also be done with objectives that are clearly defined in terms of democracy and not just spaces where reflections can be exchanged without achieving any progress.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

I wasn't certain, specifically on your answer as far as a universal periodic review, but I think I heard you say there was really no response by the Mexican government to the recommendations in the review. I take it that in your dialogue with the government their justification for the continued militarization is because the local authorities, the municipal authorities, police, are not strong enough, they don't have the resources.

Have you seen some good-faith movement on the part of the Mexican administration to bolster the local police so the need for this huge militarization is diminished? Do the local police in your municipalities fall under civilian oversight?

[Father Luis Arriaga Valenzuela, S.J.]

I'm going to answer the first part of your question.

After evaluating the recommendation on the 10th of February universal periodic review done in Geneva, attended by a representative from the State of Mexico and civil society representatives--the universal review was headed by the Secretary of the Interior--the Mexican state had an interactive dialogue with other members of a council in which 54 delegations participated. The member states of the council formulated 91 recommendations to the Government of Mexico. One of them dealt specifically with the use of military jurisdiction. I've already referred to it, and I don't want to repeat the same things.

After reviewing the recommendations, the Mexican delegation committed to adopt the necessary measures to comply with 83 of the 91 recommendations put forward, including the ones dealing with legislative harmonization--in other words, implement legislative measures to harmonize everything that is contained in international treaties that deals with non-discrimination, violence against women, judicial reform, and so on. But they reserved on another eight recommendations, which had to do with these issues of military tribunals, and these dealt mainly with ensuring that civil courts trump military courts. This has to do with item number three.

Insofar as the recommendations that were put out, I think the universal periodic review was a very important opportunity for your civil society organizations to ensure that visibility was given to the work we do and advocate for progress within wide-ranging issues involving human rights in Mexico. We regret that these eight recommendations were not accepted, because they're highly relevant within the context in which we are living right now.

What was your second question?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

The second question, Father Arriaga, was regarding the local police and whether you see some good favour on the part of the government to reduce the militarization.

[Father Luis Arriaga Valenzuela, S.J.]

Yes. The point here is that as of the entry of Felipe Calderón as president, the military--where the public is concerned--has always been considered a temporary sort of thing, but we have never been told when the army is going to withdraw from the streets. What we see here is that far from increasing the capacities of police officers, we see greater involvement of the military in public safety, but also in the civilian sector. This is of concern to us.

Just recently there was an action plan that was presented for between five and ten years by the head of the armed forces so continuity would be given to the participation of the army in the battle against drug trafficking. What we see here is that in order to strengthen this participation--that is, to give legal status to a function that de facto is carried out by the army in tasks that apply to it.... As you've said, they apply to police officers.

In this regard, we have encouraged that emergency legislation be presented so that we can ask new questions. First of all, is there a clear strategy? It's a delicate matter, but ten years, for example, might be an exception, because the plan was set out for ten years and we have seen that there haven't been substantial improvements, as far as training of police officers is concerned. We don't have efficient police officers who can appropriately fight organized crime.

How much time will it take to consolidate an appropriate strategy, a broad strategy, by means of which there will be true participation of the citizens, to go from public security--which is conceived as a state matter--to security or safety that's also in the hands of the citizens, with open dialogue between the police officers and the citizens? It seems to me that this is a pending task.

There has not been a consolidation of police bodies in an efficient fashion. The time period set out in this package that has just been presented not only indicates a lack of information about the situation, but the hope to make something temporary into a permanent situation. This appears to be very risky for us, because to approve of this--a permanent interference of the military--could bring about as a consequence greater or more violations of human rights.

Here also the question is, can we fight against illegality from the point of view of illegality? At least this is the way we have seen this, due to the number of violations of human rights committed by military personnel. We have documented this. Also, the National Commission for Human Rights has done this. What's most serious is that these measures, as well, do not apply to a democratic society.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

My apologies, but we are actually out of time. Question period has started, so I'm going to have to conclude things here. I apologize for this. This is the longest we've ever gone.

I'll just mention briefly, in thanking Father Arriaga, that he is accompanied today by Mary Jo Leddy. Although we didn't have any questions for her, she is a distinguished human rights advocate in her own right, and I wanted to acknowledge her presence.

I thank all of you very much for being here and for your patience. I thank in particular Father Arriaga for coming and providing us with such excellent testimony.

Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.