Article 17 Political Constitution of the United Mexican States

No person may take justice into their own hands, nor exercise violence to claim their right.

Every person has the right to have justice administered to them by courts that shall be expeditious to impart it in the terms and periods that the laws fix, issuing their resolutions in a prompt, complete and impartial manner. Their service shall be free, remaining, consequently, prohibited the judicial costs. The laws shall provide the amounts and cases in tax matters in which both the Administrative Courts and the District Judges and Circuit Courts of the Federal Judiciary or, as the case may be, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, must resolve in a maximum of six months, counted from the knowledge of the matter by the competent authority. In the case of complying with the indicated term and that no judgment (sentencia) has been issued, the jurisdictional organ that hears the matter must give immediate notice to the Judicial Discipline Tribunal (Tribunal de Disciplina Judicial) and justify the reasons of said delay or, as the case may be, give notice to the internal organ of control when it deals with Administrative Courts.

As long as the equality between the parties, the due process or other rights in the trials or procedures followed in the form of a trial are not affected, the authorities must privilege the solution of the conflict over the procedural formalisms.

The Congress of the Union shall issue the laws that regulate the collective actions. Such laws shall determine the matters of application, the judicial procedures and the mechanisms of reparation of damage. The federal judges shall hear in an exclusive form these procedures and mechanisms.

The laws shall provide alternative mechanisms of solution of controversies. In criminal matters they shall regulate their application, shall ensure the reparation of damage and shall establish the cases in which judicial supervision shall be required.

The judgments (sentencias) that put an end to the oral procedures must be explained in a public hearing after prior summons of the parties.

The federal and local laws shall establish the means necessary so that the independence of the courts and the full execution of their resolutions are guaranteed.

The Federation and the states (federal entities) shall guarantee the existence of a public defender service of quality for the population and shall ensure the conditions for a professional career service for the defenders. The remuneration of the defenders may not be less than that corresponding to the agents of the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministerio Público).

No one may be imprisoned for debts of a purely civil character.