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📖 Legal Glossary

This glossary provides definitions for legal terms commonly found in Mexican criminal records, judicial processes, and background check reports.

Mexican Legal Terms

Term	Definition
Acción penal	The power of the Public Prosecutor’s Office to request the competent judge to start a criminal process in which the responsibility of the accused is determined and, if applicable, the corresponding penalty or precautionary measure is applied.
Acto reclamado	An act that creates, modifies, or extinguishes legal situations unilaterally and mandatorily; or omits the act that if carried out would create, modify, or extinguish such legal situations. Examples: Condemnatory sentence, Acts depriving freedom, Acts of omission, Laws, Regulations; among others.
Acto reclamado inexistente	An act that after analysis by the Amparo Court is considered non-existent because, during the amparo process, the authority identified as responsible denies the existence of the claimed act.
Actos dentro del juicio	Procedural acts carried out within the different stages of a process; for example, Resolutions, Sentences, Formal imprisonment orders, Release orders; among others.
Actos después de terminado el juicio	Acts issued after the final judgment, award, or resolution that ends the trial/process and that has become final.
Actos fuera del juicio	Acts issued by the Authority before the start of the process; for example, acts carried out during the preliminary investigation, assurance measures; among others.
Actos omisivos	Acts by which the Authority abstains or refuses to do something and/or refrains from answering an express request from the complainant. Examples: Refusal to exercise criminal action, refusal to deliver copies; among others.
Actos de particulares	Acts issued by individuals equivalent to those of authority that affect rights and whose functions are determined by a general norm.
Actos privativos de libertad	Acts issued within or outside a process that result in the reduction, impairment, or definitive suppression of an individual’s personal freedom due to the alleged commission of a crime or administrative infringement.
Acumulación	Procedural figure by which two or more different lawsuits, subject to separate processes, but linked by referring to the same claimed act, are accumulated in order to avoid the existence of contradictory sentences, through the union of two or more processes.
Adecuación de la pena	Procedure that the convicted person starts by an irrevocable sentence to request the commuting authority, the penalty reduction, or the dismissal.
Ampara	Favorable decision of the District Judge or Collegiate Tribunal in charge of a direct or indirect amparo process in order that the effects of the act claimed by the complainant cease.
Ampara para efectos	Decision of the District Judge or Collegiate Tribunal in charge of a direct or indirect amparo process when some essential formalities (motivation, notification, technical defense; among others) of the claimed act are not met, with the aim that the responsible authority leaves it void and issues a new one in which it remedies the formal vices noticed.
Amparo Adhesivo	Amparo filed by the party favored by a sentence and interested in the persistence of the claimed act to adhere to the review appeal in a Direct Amparo filed by the opposing party.
Amparo contra leyes	Process by which the declaration of unconstitutionality of a law, regulation, or treaty is requested.
Amparo en revisión/Recurso de revisión	Means of constitutional control presented before a Collegiate Tribunal against sentences, orders, and resolutions pronounced by District Judges in amparo matters.
Ampara y Sobresee	Decision of the Amparo Court to grant part of the petitioner’s request (Ampara) and to dismiss the other due to the identification of a cause of inadmissibility.
Antecedentes penales	Data and records of final and guilty verdicts that a person over 18 years old has for committing a crime.
Arresto administrativo	Temporary deprivation of freedom for up to 36 hours for the commission of an administrative infringement, in places other than those intended for criminals or probable perpetrators of a crime.
Auto de no vinculación al proceso	Procedural act issued in the investigation stage informing the defendant of insufficient elements for the opening of a criminal investigation against them.
Auto de vinculación al proceso	Procedural act issued in the investigation stage in which the defendant is informed of the existence of facts for which the authority is conducting an investigation of them and the opening of a formal investigation period is authorized.
Auto formal de prisión	Resolution by which the arrest of an alleged culprit is ordered, or the detention of a detainee is increased, when the body of the crime has been proven, probable responsibility, and there are no exculpatory causes for the accused.
Auto de término constitucional	Resolution by which the Control Judge, within the constitutional term (72 hours), determines the legal situation of the accused for their release or continued detention to face a criminal trial for the facts attributed to them.
Autoridad responsable	State authority that dictates, promulgates, publishes, orders, executes, or tries to execute the law or the act claimed against which the protection of the government is demanded for being considered injurious to rights.
Autoridad responsable inexistente	Authority that after analysis by the Amparo Court is considered non-existent because, during the amparo process, the District Court could not notify the authority identified as responsible.
Averiguación previa	Preliminary stage to the start of the criminal process by which the Public Prosecutor’s Office investigates and carries out the necessary diligences to prove the body of the crime and the probable responsibility of the accused with the purpose of determining whether it is appropriate to exercise criminal action.

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