Article 225 Federal Criminal Code

The following are crimes against the administration of justice, committed by public officials:

I.- To hear cases in which they have a legal impediment, or to refrain from hearing those that correspond to them when they have no legal impediment to do so;

II.- To hold any other official employment or a private position or charge that the law prohibits them from holding;

III.- To litigate by themselves or through an intermediary, when the law prohibits them from the exercise of their profession;

IV.- To direct or advise the persons who litigate before them;

V.- To fail to comply with a provision that is legally communicated to them by their competent superior, without justified cause for doing so;

VI.- To issue, knowingly, a decision on the merits or a final judgment (sentencia) that is unlawful for violating any mandatory precept of the law, or that is contrary to the proceedings followed in the trial, or to omit to issue a procedural decision, a decision on the merits or a lawful final judgment, within the terms provided in the law;

VII.- To execute acts or incur in omissions that produce damage or grant someone an undue advantage;

VIII.- To delay or obstruct maliciously or through negligence the administration of justice;

IX.To refrain unjustifiably from exercising the criminal action that applies against a person who is detained at their disposal as a person charged with some crime, when this is procedurally appropriate in accordance with the Constitution and the laws on the matter, in the cases in which the law imposes that obligation on them; or to exercise the criminal action when no report, accusation or complaint is procedurally appropriate;

X.- To detain an individual outside the cases established by the law, or to retain him for more time than that established in the Constitution;

XI.Repealed.

XII.Repealed.

XIII.- To conceal from the person charged the name of the person who accuses him, except in the cases provided by the law, to fail to inform him of the crime attributed to him or to fail to carry out the evidentiary discovery in accordance with what the National Code of Criminal Procedure establishes;

XIV.To prolong pretrial detention for more time than the maximum that the law establishes for the crime that gives rise to the proceeding;

XV.- To impose tolls or contributions in any places of detention or internment;

XVI.To delay unjustifiably the compliance with judicial decisions, in which the release of a detained person is ordered;

XVII.- To fail to issue an order binding to the proceeding or of release of a detained person, within the seventy-two hours following the moment he is placed at their disposal, unless the accused has requested an extension of the term, in which case the new term shall be followed;

XVIII.- To order or conduct searches or home visits outside the cases authorized by the law;

XIX.To open a criminal proceeding against a public official, with immunity from prosecution (fuero), without having previously removed it from him, in accordance with the provisions of the law;

XX.- To order the arrest of an individual for a crime that does not merit a penalty depriving of liberty, or in cases in which no report, accusation or complaint is a prerequisite; or to carry out the arrest without placing the detained person at the disposal of the judge within the term established by article 16 of the Constitution;

XXI.The persons in charge of or employees of penitentiary centers who charge any amount to the persons charged, sentenced persons or their relatives, in exchange for providing them goods or services that the State provides free of charge in order to grant them conditions of privilege in accommodation, food or regime;

XXII.- To auction, in favor of themselves, by themselves or through an intermediary, the goods that are the subject matter of an auction in whose proceeding they have intervened;

XXIII.- To admit or appoint a depositary or to deliver to him the seized goods, without complying with the corresponding legal requirements;

XXIV.- To warn the defendant, unlawfully, regarding the attachment order decreed against him;

XXV.- To appoint as receiver or intervener in an insolvency or bankruptcy proceeding a person who is a debtor, relative or who has been a lawyer of the bankrupt, or a person who has with the official a relationship of kinship, close friendship or is linked with him by business of common interest; and

XXVI.- To permit, outside the cases provided by the law, the temporary exit of the persons who are confined.

XXVII.To fail to order the release of a person charged, decreeing his binding to the proceeding, when he is accused of a crime or modality that has established a penalty not depriving of liberty or an alternative penalty;

XXVIII.- To disclose to anyone not entitled, documents, records or information that are in an investigation file or in a criminal proceeding and that by provision of the law or decision of the judicial authority are reserved or confidential;

XXIX.Repealed.

XXX.To retain the person charged without complying with the requirements that the Constitution and the respective laws establish;

XXXI.To alter, modify, conceal, destroy, lose or disturb the scene of the events or of the discovery, clues, evidence, objects, instruments or products related to a criminal act or the chain of custody procedure;

XXXII.- To divert or obstruct the investigation of the criminal act in question or to favor that the person charged evades the action of justice;

XXXIII.To oblige a person or his representative to grant pardon in the crimes that are prosecuted by complaint; and

XXXIV.To oblige a person to resign from his charge or employment in order to avoid responding to accusations of harassment, stalking or to conceal violations of the Federal Labor Law.

XXXV.Anyone who, exercising functions of supervisor of liberty or by reason of them, makes threats, harasses or exercises violence against the person prosecuted, sentenced, his family and possessions;

XXXVI.Anyone who, exercising functions of supervisor of liberty, unduly requests favors, actions or any transfer of goods from the person prosecuted, sentenced or his family;

XXXVII.Anyone who, exercising functions of supervisor of liberty, falsifies reports or reports to the Judge of Execution.

Whoever commits the crimes provided in sections I, II, III, VII, VIII, IX, XX, XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXXIII and XXXIV shall be imposed a prison sentence of three to eight years and from thirty to one thousand one hundred days fine.

Whoever commits the crimes provided in sections IV, V, VI, X, XI, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XXI, XXII, XXIII, XXVII, XXVIII, XXX, XXXI, XXXII, XXXV, XXXVI and XXXVII shall be imposed a prison sentence of four to ten years and from one hundred to one hundred fifty days fine.

In the case of private individuals carrying out functions proper to the supervisor of liberty, and independently of the individual criminal responsibility of employees or administrators, the organization may be entitled to the penalties and measures in matters of criminal responsibility of legal persons stipulated in this Code.