CAT/C/75
page 4
PART ONE. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE
I. INTRODUCTION
1.
In accordance with article 20 of the Convention, if the Committee receives reliable
information which appears to it to contain well-founded indications that torture is being
systematically practised in the territory of a State party, the Committee shall invite that State
party to cooperate in the examination of the information and, to this end, to submit observations
with regard to the information concerned. The Committee may subsequently decide to designate
one or more of its members to make a confidential inquiry which may include a visit to the
territory of the State party concerned, with its agreement. All these proceedings of the
Committee are confidential and at all stages of the proceedings the cooperation of the State party
is sought. After the proceedings have been completed, the Committee may decide to include a
summary account of their results in its annual reports to the States parties to the Convention and
the General Assembly.
2.
Mexico ratified the Convention on 23 January 1986. At the time of ratification it did not
declare that it did not recognize the competence of the Committee provided for in article 20 of
the Convention, as it could have done under article 28 of the Convention. The procedure under
article 20 is, therefore, applicable to Mexico.
II. APPLICATION OF THE PROCEDURE
3.
In October 1998, the Committee received from the Human Rights Centre Miguel Agustín
Pro-Juárez (PRODH), a non-governmental organization based in Mexico City, a report entitled
“Torture: Institutionalized Violence in Mexico, April 1997-September 1998”. The report
contained an appeal to the Committee to undertake an investigation pursuant to article 20 of the
Convention.
4.
At its twenty-first session (November 1998, the Committee requested one of its members,
Mr. Alejandro González Poblete, to consider that report in detail. He did so in the light of other
information available to the Committee, in particular the information provided by the
Government in connection with the consideration of its third periodic report and the report of the
Commission on Human Rights’ Special Rapporteur on torture concerning his visit to Mexico in
August 1997 (E/CN.4/1998/38/Add.2).
5.
In the light of his consideration, the Committee determined that the information
submitted by PRODH was sound and gave justifiable grounds for believing that torture was
systematically practised in Mexico. In accordance with article 20, paragraph 1, of the
Convention and rule 76 of its Rules of Procedure, the Committee, in a letter dated
30 November 1998, requested the Government of Mexico to cooperate in the examination of,
and comment on, the information in question.
6.
On 1 and 19 March 1999, the Government sent the Committee documents enumerating
the legislation in force and the measures taken by the authorities at various levels in previous
years to combat torture. It described the information from PRODH as “biased and tendentious”.