In Mexico City, since 2021, if a person wants to identify a person sentenced for having committed a crime of a sexual nature, they can access a website specially created for this purpose by the capital’s government. The objective of this database is to establish itself as a prevention and protection mechanism to address the “risk of recidivism and repetition of conduct of sexual violence.”
Created from a reform to the Penal Code in March 2020, the Public Registry of Sexual Offenders of the Mexican capital is a database that contains the names and images of 417 criminals who have been sentenced for rape, sexual abuse, corruption of minors and femicide, among other crimes. The list is public, and can still be consulted (https://registroagresores.cdmx.gob.mx/public/Resultados.xhtml).
However, being able to know who the sex offenders on that list are will not last long, since the Plenary of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) determined that the registry should be closed to the public, because the display on the internet of those are found responsible for a sexual crime, generates a stigma and represents a double penalty for those sentenced.
The problem here is that the Court privileged the rights of sexual offenders, and not those of the citizenry, especially the right to information of sexually violated women, and potential victims of this type of crime.
With the vote of 8 ministers out of the 11 that make up the plenary session of the country’s highest court, the registration was invalidated because, the robed men said, it violates the Constitution, by violating the right to social reintegration.
The database includes the photograph of the aggressor; her name; age; aliases, and nationality. Likewise, although they are not available to the public, the registry also contains, only for the authorities, the personal details of the offender; the criminological zone; he modus operandi (form of action to commit the crime); the signalectic file of the sentenced person; and their genetic profile.
The Court’s ruling has not yet been notified to the capital’s government, since the ministers have not concluded the analysis and vote on all the issues in controversy, but it is a fact that the registry will no longer be public, as it is considered unconstitutional.
rights collision
These types of records are used in most democratic countries, although Sex offender listings are only publicly available in the United States, Australia, South Korea, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Manitoba.
In the United Kingdom, although it is not available on the internet, since 2013, if requested by the local police, the citizens of that nation can find out if someone in particular is registered as a sex offender.
In our country, in addition to the one that exists in Mexico City, there is the Public Registry of Sexual Offenders of Baja California, although to access it you must demonstrate that you have a legitimate interest. In other words, the interested party must prove before the government of that entity that with access to the database they will obtain a benefit for their rights to security, the best interests of children and adolescents; or the right of women to a life free from violence.
just because the exercise of these fundamental rights is enhanced by having access to information about who are the people who are already sentenced, because they were found responsible for a sexual crime, the elimination of public access to the registry actually ends up harming the society of Mexico City.
Because no human right is absolute, when two or more fundamental rights collide in a legal dispute, judges must weigh up to determine which of the rights in conflict should prevail.
In this case, the Court placed greater value on the right to privacy of sex offenders. In contrast, the right of citizens to have information on the general data of those sentenced was annulled, which did not include their address or the place in Mexico City where they committed the crime.
In the nations already mentioned, in which the registries of sexual offenders are public, they can be searched even if a person who has been released from prison after completing their sentence for a sexual offense lives on a specific street.
This serves so that the community is informed, and at the same time generates an inhibitory effect on ex-convicts, because they know that their neighbors know that they have a history of having committed a crime against the sexual integrity of another person.
In these countries, their authorities consider that this type of public information allows for the reduction of sexual crimes, or the repetition of these by those who have already been convicted and obtained their freedom.
It is true that this perspective is often controversial, as there are also experts in those same nations who consider that public registries of sexual offenders generate the opposite effect: It is argued that, by appearing in this type of database, people are subjected to stress released people who completed a sentence for a sexual crime, which allows their recidivism.
Rapists, but without stigma
In basing her vote in favor of the registry ceasing to be public, the Minister President of the Court, Norma Lucia Pina Hernandez, He emphasized that the exhibition of the sentenced has as a consequence “the reiteration of that negative value judgment” received by the people who were declared criminally responsible.
This “It gives them a permanent situation in the face of society based on the crime they committed: being branded as sexual offenders,” pointed.
However, the president of the SCJN considered that the registry should remain without being made public on the internet, as a mechanism of government policy for the prevention and protection of women, girls, boys and adolescents, against sexual violence.
The database, always that cannot be consulted by any citizen, It is valid and constitutes a very useful instrument for the authorities to investigate sexual crimes and identify the probable perpetrators, Piña Hernández said.
In turn, the minister Arturo Zaldivar, who was one of the three robed members of the Plenary Court who voted against closing the list to the public, said that, in his opinion, the registration is constitutionally valid, because it does not punish the offenders of sexual crimes, but rather prevents, cares for and safeguards the rights and integrity of women.
“Carrying out a weighting analysis and a proportionality analysis, the measure is constitutionally valid, it is adequate, (and) legitimate,” said Zaldívar, although his position remained in the minority.
The reforms that created the Public Registry of Sexual Offenders of the Mexican capital were challenged in the Supreme Court, through separate Actions of Unconstitutionality, by the National Human Rights Commission and its counterpart in Mexico City, institutions that considered that the list violated the fundamental rights of sexual offenders.
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surya palaces Journalist and lawyer, specialist in legal analysis and human rights. She has been a reporter, radio host and editor.