Mexico disputes Court’s jurisdiction in Radilla caseBy Cristian Anton The Mexican government has accepted ‘without reserve’ the disappearance and likely death of Rosendo Radilla Pacheco during the first hearing of the case brought against it before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights for “crimes against humanity”. However, it has rejected the charges against it claiming that the Court does not have jurisdiction in the case. “It would not be fair for the Court to put Mexico on trial for an act committed so many years ago, the country of today is different from that of those years,” said Secretary of the Interior Fernando Gómez Mont, head of the Mexican delegation at the hearing in San José, Costa Rica, on 8 July.(1) Government officials charged with defending Mexico in the case argued that the disappearance of Mr Radilla at the hands of the Mexican Army happened on the 24th of August 1974, “long before the Mexican state accepted the jurisdiction and competence of the Court” in 1998.(2) The case of Mr Radilla is the first case of forced disappearance brought against Mexico before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Forced disappearances were common in Mexico’s Guerrero State during the Dirty War that lasted from the late 60s to the early 80s. The relatives of the victim argued that Mr Radilla, a respected activist and community leader, was disappeared for having composed corridos (folk ballads) in support of guerrilla leader Lucio Cabañas, and spoke of the impunity enjoyed by the military for 35 years. The demands of the family, which include accusations of violations of the right to life, personal liberty, due process and judicial protection, among others, were backed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights after the government of Felipe Calderón failed to comply with the Commission’s recommendations on this offence. Present at the hearing was the son of Mr Radilla, who witnessed the arrest of his father at a military roadblock on the outskirts of Acapulco. He asked that the Court order the Mexican government to find the remains of the disappeared and punish those responsible. Tita Radilla, daughter of the victim, told the Court about the family’s 35-year struggle for justice against the Mexican government, the frustration of impunity and the numerous threats and perils they were facing throughout this time. Tita Radilla is vice-president of the Association of Family Members of the Disappeared and Victims of Human Rights Violations in Mexico (AFADEM). She has been provided with protective accompaniment by PBI since 2003, when the principal witness in one of AFADEM’s cases was assassinated. At the time that Mr Radilla disappeared, Mexico was not a part of the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons, which it only ratified in 2002, and then with a reservation which states that “the provisions of said Convention shall apply to acts constituting the forced disappearance of persons ordered, executed, or committed after the entry into force of this Convention”.(3) Judge Cecilia Medina Quiroga, the president of the Court, asked the Mexican official why jurisdiction was not recognised if the act itself was admitted, its severity not diminished by time. Mr Gómez Mont then argued that no state had objected to Mexico’s reservation to the Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons in 2002.(4) María Sirvent, a solicitor for the Mexican Commission for the Defence and Promotion of Human Rights (CMDPDH), the NGO which brought the case before the Court, said that the response of the Mexican government was “a conciliatory political discourse, clearly defending the Mexican Army, military jurisdiction and the efficiency of the military justice system”.(5) The Mexican government is not the first to use the lack of jurisdiction argument before the Court. In 2005, Salvadorian government officials employed a similar defence in the case of the Serrano-Cruz Sisters v. El Salvador, also the first such case brought against that country. The Court then dismissed the objection and held the government guilty of violating the right to judicial protection, on account of El Salvador being a party to the American Convention on Human Rights in 1982 at the time that the act was committed.(6) However, Mexico was not party to that convention until 1981.(7) Closing arguments will be delivered by the IACHR, the representatives of the victims and the Mexican government before August 14th. 1. As told to La Jornada newspaper, 07.12.2009. Text available at: 2. Ibid. 3. Text of the Mexican reservation to the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons, as found on 07.31.2009 at: 4. Ibid. 5. As told to Proceso Magazine, 1706/07.12.2009, p.11-13. Text available at: 6. Details of the case, as found on 07.31.2009 at: 7. Text of the American Convention on Human Rights, as found on 07.31.2009 at: More info: |
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