Mexico enacts amnesty law

Mexico has enacted an amnesty law, a United Nations-backed bill presented by the government that will allow for the release from prison of people convicted of minor crimes or who did not receive due process during their conviction.

The introduction of the law was one of the campaign pledges of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (pictured), and which was criticised during the campaign by rival candidates on the grounds that it would free criminals.

The law applies to women who have undergone an abortion in states where the procedure was not yet legal, as well as the doctors, nurses, midwives and attending staff. In addition, traffickers of small amounts of narcotics who were forced into the trade through poverty or a physical disability, or who were coerced by drug cartels, while indigenous citizens who were not duly represented or offered an interrpreter of their native language will also benefit from the amnesty.

So-called political prisoners, who were imprisoned for inciting sedition but who did not commit acts of terrorism, will also be eligible to be released from prison, according to a note from law firm Basham Ringe & Correa.

Convicts who cmmitted robbery without violence with sentences of fewer than four years in prison will also be eligible to be freed. 

The bill had received the support of the UN’s Human Rights Commissioner and former president of Chile Michelle Bachelet.