The state of Oaxaca has the opportunity to initiate a transition towards an efficient and effective attorney general’s office (Fiscalía General) that guarantees access to justice for victims, a pending debt that civil society organizations have enunciated, documented and described as a “historical debt.”
After a prolonged process, on January 25th of 2023, deputies of the LXV Legislature of Oaxaca appointed the new Attorney General, José Bernardo Rodríguez Alamilla, who took office for the next six years with a great challenge to restructure the justice system, which has been deficient and in violation of human rights for decades.
Highlighting that last year, the National Survey of Victimization and Perception of Public Security (ENVIPE) 2022, belonging to the National Subsystem of Information on Government, Public Security and Justice (SNIGSPIJ) ranked Oaxaca in tenth place nationally, according to alarming records of impunity. 94.2% of the crimes committed were not reported or investigation files were not initiated because of distrust towards the institution and the lack of operability of the State Prosecutor’s Office (Fiscalía del Estado).
With the arrival of the new Prosecutor (Fiscal), the establishment of objectives for comprehensive attention to victims, the perspective of human rights, autonomy, and transparency, and above all the political will and more, will be the guideline to combat the rates of impunity suffered by the people of Oaxaca. This obliges us as human rights organizations to document and monitor the work of this institution to make sure that it does respond to the demands of citizens and works with zero tolerance for impunity during the coming years.