Page 69 - Empowerment and Protection - Stories of Human Security

the enactment of the National Code on Criminal Procedures, an important instrument needed to enable the new criminal justice system.
It is important to note that these legislative
and judicial reforms were widely promoted
by social movements, experts and civil society organisations. Thus, civil society played a signiicant role in inluencing public policy and promoting a more human approach to security challenges in Mexico.
Continuing challenges
Although the new administration has made some progress, academics and civil society members continue to debate the depth of changes in the national security strategy. While victims’ movements have succeeded in getting the attention of the President, their impact on policy has been less evident, according to Ximena Antillón, “Thanks
to the strength and international visibility of the movement, the government had to open a dialogue with the victims. During these dialogues, the President made a lot of promises; sadly, deep down nothing changed. It was just a media strategy from the presidency.”
Continued human rights violations, the presence of violent criminal organisations, and rampant government corruption and impunity still threaten human security. One interviewee said, “There is no oficial strategy to tackle impunity, nor is there any serious commitment to bring to justice those responsible for the human rights abuses.” The security and law enforcement apparatus still has numerous deiciencies and lacks the trust of the population, while the military operates without proper civilian controls. The emergence of armed civilian groups in different parts of the country also represents a serious threat to human security.
At an institutional level, experts believe that reforming the system of public security and
criminal justice, to ‘restructure the public security institutions, transform the criminal proceedings
and professionalise criminal defense’, is still one of the most important pending issues.16 Constitutional reforms in 2008 called for a transition of the justice system to an accusatorial system by 2016. Nearly six years later, constitutional reform still lags. Reforms
to the public security system are also still pending, especially those concerning the police and the prison system. As long as this is the case, individual citizens, civil society and social movements will continue to seek to ill this gap – for better or for worse.
The authors work for the Centro de Colaboración Cívica (CCC), is a non-partisan, non-proit civil society organisation that aims to promote a culture for dialogue, collaboration, and peaceful resolution of conlicts and to enable processes that strengthen democracy, sustainable development, and the rule of law in Mexico. ccc is a member of the north america network of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of armed conlict (GPPac) and of Partners for Democratic change international.
Recommendations
▪ National and international organisations
such as the UN should help build and strengthen an inclusive and pluralistic civil society in Mexico. Civil society has a key role
in promoting a human security approach in
both social and oficial initiatives. Civil society organisations help to strengthen the trust between various stakeholders and empower citizens
and those affected by violence to participate in policymaking. Mexico’s civil society is smaller than that of other regions and needs greater support and capacity building.
▪ Civil society organisations should promote pluralistic and inclusive spaces for multi- stakeholder dialogue and the construction of agreements on violence reduction strategies and national security policies. It is vital to reinforce participation in productive multi- stakeholder dialogues in order to create spaces for deliberation and coordination that foster information exchange, generate new proposals, and promote the development of collaborative advocacy strategies. The complexity of roots
and causes of violence in the country cannot be engaged from a single perspective or discipline.
▪ The government must allow for NGO- facilitated initiatives that engage citizens
in monitoring authorities’ implementation
of laws and policies. The government should
be accountable to the people through oversight strategies such as publicised public opinion polling. This would help ensure laws and policies are implemented eficiently and transparently, as well as with respect for human rights.
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