Two years after Bertha María Alcalde Luján took over as head of the Mexico City Attorney General’s Office, it’s fair to acknowledge that significant changes have been observed. It would be unfair to deny it.
There’s an active team, committed to modernizing processes and facilitating, at least rhetorically, access to justice. However, in the daily practice of litigation, something doesn’t quite add up.
It seems the underlying diagnosis hasn’t been entirely accurate.
Those of us who work daily in the prosecutor’s offices know that the problem doesn’t lie, at least not primarily, with the head of the institution, nor with the upper management.
The problem lies elsewhere, with the frontline prosecutors and the way they are organized, or rather, disorganized, within each agency.
Let’s take the Strategic Investigation Prosecutor’s Office for Financial Crimes as an example. Not long ago, litigants could enter, file motions, and speak directly with the prosecutor. With its shortcomings, yes, but there was contact. Above all, there was a material obligation to provide assistance.
Today, the situation is different. Entering that Prosecutor’s Office has become a bureaucratic process bordering on the absurd: prior registration, security checks at the entrance, waits that can last for hours. One only needs to observe the external dynamics to notice the level of institutional gridlock. Sometimes, litigants are even told to wait in undignified spaces, next to restrooms in deplorable condition, with the sole objective of concealing the internal disarray.
And even after overcoming this initial obstacle, the problem persists. Access is gained, an appointment is obtained, a wait of forty minutes, an hour, or more is endured, and when finally, the response is repetitive: “I haven’t had time,” “I was just assigned the case file,” “submit it again.”
The consequence is serious, as there are hundreds of investigation files years old with no substantial progress. Not for lack of legal resources. Not for lack of institutional guidelines.
Let’s be blunt: the problem isn’t the Attorney General. Nor, in many cases, is it the head of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office. The problem lies with the lower-level public prosecutors and their agency heads, who have normalized inaction as a way of working.
What’s most worrying is that the system seems to operate under a stupid logic: if the litigant doesn’t persist, if they don’t escalate the matter, if they don’t file complaints with the Internal Control Body or request hearings regarding omissions by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the investigation file simply doesn’t move forward. In other words, fulfilling one’s duty has become the exception, not the rule.
Even basic procedures, such as appointing a legal advisor, can take weeks or months to complete. And this isn’t due to legal complexity, but rather administrative inefficiency.
Given this situation, the conclusion is inevitable: any effort at institutional transformation will be insufficient if this core problem isn’t addressed. Circulars can be issued, digital systems implemented, or structures redesigned, but if the direct operator fails to fulfill their duties, the administration of justice will remain an unfulfilled promise.
The solution is not rhetorical. It is concrete. Audit, supervise, and, where appropriate, sanction. Review agency by agency, case by case. Start, for example, with the Strategic Investigation Prosecutor’s Office for Financial Crimes. Cleaning up that area alone would entail considerable, but necessary, work.
Because in the end, the truly serious issue is not the procedural delay itself. The truly serious issue is having to explain to a victim that their case is not progressing, not for lack of legal standing, but because the person responsible for enforcing their rights simply refuses to do their job.
And that, without a doubt, is the kind of injustice that no system can afford to tolerate.
Source: elfinanciero
