After successfully bringing attention to judicial impunity, “Presunto culpable” is now victim of the Mexican judicial system
Antonio “Toño” Zúñiga, in a Mexican prison after being wrongfully accused of murder. (Credit: Abogados con Cámara (Lawyers with Cameras))
On July 12 the site Ciudadanos en Red published a letter attributed to Roberto Hernández, director of Mexico’s highest grossing documentary, “Presunto culpable”. The film about corruption in the Mexican judicial system remains at the crossroads of Mexico’s judicial system. But while in the film Antonio Zúñiga, falsely accused of murder, is the center of attention, now it is the film itself. As the letter states:
Yesterday [July 10] several media outlets requested access to the hearings: they left them outside of the court, including print media that only had a notebook. Then, what do we have? A court that works in secret, far from citizen scrutiny. A court that records what is convenient, not what really happens in the hearings. A court that passes judgement about our rights even before delivering a sentence. A court that time and again does not allow us to question the people who are suing us, as it again happened yesterday. A court that allows us to be sued by the witness who did not see Toño Zúñiga commit the crime of which he accused him and who yesterday also recognized that he has not seen the film for which he is suing us. In Mexico we are far from a dependable justice system and we are scared, not for what could happen to us, but what could happen to those who want to follow our steps and engage in journalism about Mexico’s Judicial Power.