On Wednesday at 11 a.m., hearings begin at the Congress of Mexico City to ratify the seven candidates to be ratified for life as judges of the local High Court of Justice. The first to appear comes with unfavorable opinions from both citizens and local and even federal mPs: Judge Manuel Horacio Cavazos López, who has a complaint of alleged sexual assaults against his daughters.
On Tuesday, legislators who were interested in hearing the case firsthand met with the girls’ mother, by the intervention of local deputy Alessandra Rojo de la Vega.
In the afternoon, a letter with 657 citizen firms, collected by the Rainbow Foundation, was delivered to the Congressional Political Coordination Board. This association is dedicated to defending the sexual rights of both the LGBT community and whether there is an abuse in which sexuality is used as an instrument of violence.
Upon learning of the complaint against Cavazos, released by Animal Político, the organization decided to take action to demand that it not remain in the office it has held for six years and in just five days they put together the more than 600 signatures, including the artists Ana Francis Mor, Ursula Pruneda and Lorena Wolffer.
“What justice do we expect from a magistrate who violates the dignity and integrity of his own daughters? The safety of all women and girls is at risk if ratified. In the face of doubt, certainty: NO to the ratification of Manuel Horacio Cavazos López as a magistrate,” the letter states.
In the federal Chamber of Deputies, lawmaker Wendy Briceño, Chairperson of the Committee on Gender Equality, will present on Wednesday a point of agreement to launch an exhortation that in this case the best interests of children be considered and acted on a gender perspective, addressed to the High Court, the Council of the Judiciary, the local Congress responsible for ratifying or not ratifying the magistrate, and the local prosecutor’s office, which has not ruled on it, even though the complaint has not been prosecuted for four months.
“Because of the gravity of the matter in committee, it is urged depending on the scope of the appellate bodies: (1) to provide the necessary protective measures to minors; (2) due diligence is taken into account of the complaint made, 3) the feasibility of the permanence as the delivery of justice of the alleged aggressor is considered, until a judicial decision of the case is issued and (4) that the decision of the Congress of the CDMX takes advantage of the best interests of children and, under a gender perspective, the proposal for ratification of the judge concerned”, the Deputy in a statement, advanced.
At the local level there have also been signs of rejection of the ratification of this magistrate, along with the news on January 28 that the Council of the Judiciary itself decided to recommend that another justice designer, Héctor Jiménez López, who allowed the freedom of the ex-husband and today suspected of the murder of Abril Pérez Sagón, should not be kept in office.
The deputy of the Green Party Alessandra Rojo de la Vega sent a message against both men being confirmed in her position, which was joined by the chairwoman of the board, Isabela Rosales of Morena, and Leonor Gómez Otegui of the PT.
Cavazos López was reported on 23 September for alleged sexual assaults against his two daughters, then 5 and 6 years old.
Psychological expertise assumes that the reported event occurred, but says that one of the girls has no psychological involvement because it “does not provide a negative connotation.”
Subsequently, psychologists at the Sexual Crime Victim Support Therapy Center (CTA), which belongs to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, credited that there are symptoms of having suffered sexual assault, such as fear, anger and anxiety. In addition, in the folder there are audios in which one of the little ones tells her mother what her father supposedly did to her.
Last week, it was to be determined whether or not the investigative folder was brought before a judge, which resulted in the crime of which the magistrate is accused would merit pre-trial detention, but the Public Prosecutor’s Office called for an extension to accept further evidence of the case, such as assessments of the girls’ words. Cavazos denied the allegations in a letter.
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