Article 16 Political Constitution of the United Mexican States

No one may be disturbed in their person, family, domicile, papers or possessions, except by virtue of a written mandate of the competent authority, which founds and motivates the legal cause of the procedure. In the trials and procedures followed in the form of a trial in which orality is established as a rule, it shall be sufficient that a record of them remains in any medium that gives certainty of their content and of the fulfillment of the provisions of this paragraph.

Every person has the right to the protection of their personal data, to the access, rectification and cancellation of the same, as well as to manifest their opposition, in the terms that the law fixes, which shall establish the cases of exception to the principles that govern the processing of data, for reasons of national security, provisions of public order, public security and health or to protect the rights of third parties.

No arrest warrant may be issued except by the judicial authority and without a denunciation or complaint preceding of an act that the law indicates as a crime, sanctioned with a penalty depriving of liberty and there being data that establish that this act has been committed and that there exists the probability that the indictee committed it or participated in its commission.

The authority that executes a judicial arrest warrant must place the accused at the disposal of the judge, without any delay and under their strictest responsibility. The contravention of the foregoing shall be sanctioned by the criminal law.

Any person may detain the indictee at the moment in which they are committing a crime or immediately after having committed it, placing them without delay at the disposal of the nearest civil authority and this one with the same promptness, at that of the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público). There shall be an immediate record of the detention.

Only in urgent cases, when it deals with a serious crime thus qualified by the law and before the founded risk that the indictee may evade the action of justice, as long as it is not possible to go before the judicial authority by reason of the hour, place or circumstance, the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público) may, under its responsibility, order their detention, founding and expressing the indications that motivate its proceeding.

In cases of urgency or flagrancy, the judge who receives the committal of the detainee must immediately ratify the detention or decree liberty with the reservations of law.

The judicial authority, at the petition of the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público) and when it deals with crimes of organized crime, may decree the arraigo of a person, with the modalities of place and time that the law indicates, without it being able to exceed forty days, provided that it is necessary for the success of the investigation, the protection of persons or legally protected interests, or when there exists a founded risk that the accused may evade the action of justice. This term may be extended, as long as the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público) accredits that the causes that gave rise to it subsist. In all cases, the total duration of the arraigo may not exceed eighty days.

By organized crime is understood a de facto organization of three or more persons, to commit crimes in a permanent or reiterated form, in the terms of the law on the matter.

No indictee may be retained by the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público) for more than forty-eight hours, a term in which their liberty must be ordered or they must be placed at the disposal of the judicial authority; this term may be doubled in those cases that the law provides as organized crime. Any abuse of the foregoing shall be sanctioned by the criminal law.

In every search warrant, which only the judicial authority may issue, at the request of the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público), the place that is to be inspected shall be expressed, the person or persons who are to be arrested and the objects that are sought, to which the diligence must only be limited, a detailed record being drawn up upon concluding it, in the presence of two witnesses proposed by the occupant of the searched place or, in their absence or refusal, by the authority that carries out the diligence.

Private communications are inviolable. The law shall criminally sanction any act that attempts against the liberty and privacy of the same, except when they are provided in a voluntary form by one of the private individuals who participate in them. The judge shall evaluate the scope of these, as long as they contain information related to the commission of a crime. In no case shall communications that violate the duty of confidentiality that the law establishes be admitted.

Exclusively the federal judicial authority, at the petition of the federal authority that the law empowers or of the holder of the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público) of the corresponding state (federal entity), may authorize the intervention of any private communication. For this, the competent authority must found and motivate the legal causes of the request, expressing in addition, the type of intervention, the subjects of the same and its duration. The federal judicial authority may not grant these authorizations when it deals with matters of an electoral, fiscal, mercantile, civil, labor or administrative character, nor in the case of the communications of the detainee with their defense counsel.

The Judicial Powers shall have control judges who shall resolve, in an immediate form, and by any means, the petitions of precautionary measures, precautionary orders and investigation techniques of the authority, that require judicial control, guaranteeing the rights of the indictees and of the victims or aggrieved parties. There must exist a reliable record of all the communications between judges and the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público) and other competent authorities.

The authorized interventions shall be adjusted to the requirements and limits provided in the laws. The results of the interventions that do not comply with these shall lack all evidentiary value.

The administrative authority may carry out domiciliary visits solely to ascertain that the sanitary and police regulations have been fulfilled; and to demand the exhibition of the books and papers indispensable to verify that the fiscal provisions have been observed, subjecting themselves in these cases, to the respective laws and to the formalities prescribed for searches.

The correspondence that circulates under cover through the post offices shall be free of all registration, and its violation shall be punished by the law.

In time of peace no member of the permanent Armed Force -the Army, the Air Force, the Navy and the National Guard- may lodge in a private house against the will of the owner, nor impose any prestation. In time of war the military may demand lodging, baggage, food and other prestations, in the terms that the corresponding martial law establishes.