Justice in the face of forced absence
The Supreme Court has just taken a step that, in this country, hurts but is necessary. Unanimously, it endorsed that if a witness is a victim of disappearance, his previous statement can be read at trial. His voice is not drowned out by his presence.
Minister President Hugo Aguilar Ortiz was clear. In a country marked by this tragedy, he said: “this decision defends something essential: that the absence of a person does not imply the loss of truth and justice.” The court stands, in his words, as a “sensitive” body.
A real case from Irapuato
The resolution did not come out of nowhere. It comes from an amparo related to an attack in Irapuato, Guanajuato. Two young men were walking when men in a vehicle shot them. One died, another survived.
The survivor gave his ministerial statement. Then, he was also disappeared. To pursue the case, the prosecution used the statements of family members. The arrested aggressor argued that this testimony read should not be valid. A court agreed with him.
It was then that the relatives of the murdered young man fought. They appealed to the Court arguing that the right to justice was violated. And they won.
The project establishes something key: disappearance in a criminal context is an insurmountable circumstance. The person is in “extreme vulnerability”, with their human rights being continually violated. His inability to appear is real and beyond his control.
It is a pragmatic measure in the face of an atrocious reality. It seeks to ensure that the processes do not founder when witnesses are silenced by the same climate of violence that is intended to be judged. The memory of testimony against forced forgetting.
