That's a very good question. I'm very pleased that you're asking it, because it is so important.
Indeed, in 2008 there was a judicial reform. We've celebrated some of the progress of this reform. We feel that it is quite positive that we have an accusatory system that is adversarial and based on oral evidence. It's set up and today it's going through a transition period. We've eliminated the situations that were very absurd because people were held for three days after committing a crime. There is something very positive here, where we see the creation of what we call investigatory judges, who come and ensure that there's a lawful investigation and that the public prosecutor is taking actions that can be reviewed by a different authority from the one making judgment regarding the person who is accused of a crime. I think this is some progress.
We've also seen progress in public defence, which now is aiming at quality defence, precisely in a country where the justice system has opted to bring to trial the poorest of the poor, who have no recourse to defend themselves legally. It's very important that we have guarantees to a fair trial. This is something that is recognized in the constitution as well as in other international instruments, such as the presumption of innocence, the right to remain silent, the principle of lawful evidence, and the right not to be tortured. These rights have already been recognized in the constitution.
Of course, some of these need to be complied with. There are some aspects that also have to be corrected. In that sense, I believe that we see the word arraigo; I cannot find a translation for this, but it is the practice of being detained. When you fight organized crime, what happens with this...well, I detain you and then afterwards I will investigate you. So this is an irrational function and of course is harmful to the presumption of innocence and to personal freedom. In actual fact, this is a retrogressive step. This is a halfway reform, if you wish, that needs to be further recognized.
Another process in the reform you've referred to, Mr. Dorion, is the preventive detainment of individuals who are accused of belonging to organized crime, which, as we have already pointed out in the Centro Prodh, creates two penal systems. In one system you recognize the fundamental rights, which I've already referred to, such as presumption of innocence, the right to stay silent, legality of the evidence, and so on. But there's another right where we see no margin--in other words, everyone who perhaps makes a judgment based on their own personal feelings that somebody is not worthy of respect. This is something that we've already seen in the case of two women who were discriminated against for the simple reason that they were indigenous and were poor. They were victims of the justice system. They were accused of having kidnapped six agents of the federal investigation corps, which is the equivalent to the FBI, say, in Mexico.
So that's what I have to say about the administration system and the justice system, which have some shortfalls. We hope, of course, that we will be able to achieve some progress in states such as Nuevo León, Chihuahua, Oaxaca, and the State of Mexico. Of course, all of this reform is very recent and we feel it's important to say that we still need to be able to fully assess and evaluate the scope of this reform and the reform already undertaken in other states.
There are some elements, which I've already referred to, which we feel to be of some concern.