Supreme Court building.

Bad news for human rights in Mexico. The Supreme Court ruled today that the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) can withhold information related to ongoing investigations from the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) if it so chooses. More specifically, the ruling upheld Article 5 of the Attorney General Act, which states:

[The PGR] will provide information to the National Human Rights Commission when requested in the exercise of its functions, as long as the information doesn’t put ongoing investigations or the safety of individuals at risk.

Emphasis mine. Of course, the PGR itself gets to decide what “risk” means. I imagine they like to err on the side of caution. This means it will be basically impossible for the CNDH to intervene and stop human rights violations in progress, as most of the bad ones (forced disappearance, unlawful detention, torture, etc.) take place during the “investigation.”

The court’s vote in the ruling was split, 7-4. There is no reaction yet from the CNDH.

(Image used courtesy of Thelmadatter via Wikicommons.)

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Uribe's last stand.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s aspirations to trash constitutional term limits and win a third consecutive term in office suffered a setback in the Supreme Constitutional Court yesterday. The judge in charge of preliminary analysis recommended that the court rule against holding a national referendum to eliminate term limits.

La Silla Vacía reports that the judge – Humberto Sierra Porto – made his recommendation strictly on procedural grounds, not on the merits, though this is impossible to verify since the document has not been made public. La Silla Vacía says the recommendation is not binding, but according to Semana a majority of the court would have to vote against it to change it. In any case, the full court has 60 days to issue a final ruling, though it has indicated that it will not take the full 60 days.

Uribe is up against the calender. The presidential elections are scheduled for May 30, and his party has yet to put forward a candidate. One assumes they’re crossing their fingers hoping for a favorable ruling from the Constitutional Court, but even if the Constitutional Court expedites its ruling, it’s not clear there would be enough time to hold a referendum before the elections.

Semana says the referendum is basically Uribe’s last chance for a third consecutive term, since by this point a constitutional amendment and a majority null vote are out of the question. Besides that, his party still has to put up a candidate, and the longer they wait, the more difficult it will be to win on May 30.

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