Mexico’s embattled President Enrique Peña Nieto has called on the country’s states to swiftly adopt steps to modernise the justice system as he tries to defuse mass protests over the apparent massacre of 43 students.
“Society is rightly sick of feeling vulnerable. It is tired of impunity and crime,” Peña Nieto said on Friday, vowing to push for a more transparent, trustworthy justice system in Mexico.
“The Mexican state has a decades-old debt with its citizens, and it’s time to pay it.”
Peña Nieto is facing the deepest crisis of his presidency after the students’ abduction in late September by rogue police in league with drug gang members shone a light on chronic corruption and impunity.
Those woes have been compounded by a conflict-of-interest scandal after his family home was found to belong to a company that was part of a Chinese-led consortium awarded a major high speed rail contract.
In 2008, Congress approved a reform that sought to modernise the judicial system, setting a 2016 deadline for Mexico’s 32 states to end behind-closed-doors trials and implement public proceedings where prosecutors and defenders present evidence.
However, with less than two years to go until the deadline, only a handful of states have fully or even partially implemented the measures.
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