A hearing on pretrial detention as a precautionary measure, in the face of the principle of presumption of innocence

Abstract

In Mexico, constitutional and legislative reforms in the criminal field have introduced important changes regarding preventive detention, particularly with regard to its conditions and justification, in order to guarantee respect for the fundamental rights of people, such as presumption of innocence. The most relevant reform in this sense was carried out in 2008, when a new adversarial criminal justice system was adopted, which established a series of procedural guarantees, highlighting the presumption of innocence as a fundamental principle.
With the implementation of this new system, preventive detention was no longer considered an automatic punitive measure and began to be seen as an exception. That is, the judicial authority is required to precisely and adequately justify its imposition, based on objective and proportional reasons. This means that preventive detention cannot be imposed arbitrarily, nor as an early sentencing measure, since the accused must be considered innocent until proven otherwise