MEXICO Law and Practice Contributed by: Gilberto Miguel Valle Zulbarán, Alejandro Catalá Guerrero and Erick Gustavo Soto Ceballos, Basham, Ringe y Correa
9. Assessment 9.1 Assessment of the Applicable Enforced Legislation
corruption: bribery, undue influence, and mis - appropriation of public resources. In the 2023 report, Mexico was ranked 118 out of 140 coun - tries in the Rule of Law, dropping three places versus the previous year, with an index score of 0.41, along with Guinea. For absence of corrup - tion, Mexico was positioned 135 out of 140, with an index score of 0.27, just above Venezuela, Cameroon, Gabon, Haiti, Cambodia, Bolivia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mexican Institute for Competitiveness The Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO) developed the Corruption Risk Index (IRC) to assess more than 260 federal institu - tions in Mexico. This index employs three sub- indices – transparency, competition, and legal compliance – to evaluate corruption risk. Institu - tions are scored on a scale from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating a greater risk of corrup - tion in public procurement. In analysing the risk of institutions in 2022 com - pared to the previous year, IMCO found that 184 institutions had higher scores. This indicates that, between 2020 and 2022, 71% of federal institutions increased their corruption risk scores in public procurement. It was noted that federal institutions failed to comply with procurement laws by contracting MXN3.584 billion with high- risk companies, including sanctioned firms, shell companies, and newly established entities. Regarding transparency in public procurement, the IRC results indicated that, in 2022, institu - tions exhibited a continued lack of transparency, with 16% of direct awards and 30% of tenders being incomplete due to non-compliance with the publication of one or more requisite docu - ments.
In Mexico, the evaluation of corruption and anti- bribery is primarily carried out by civil society and international organisations. Transparency International In the 2023 edition of the Corruption Perception Index (CPI), the organisation Transparency Inter - national presented the ratings of 180 countries evaluated from 0 to 100 for level of corruption, taking into account the experiences revealed by the surveys of various experts. This year, Mexico ranks 126th on the board with 31 points, for the fourth consecutive year since 2020, sharing the position with Kenya, Togo, and El Salvador. According to Transpar - ency International, Mexico’s stagnant position is primarily due to a lack of judicial independ - ence, which undermines the judiciary’s ability to act impartially and effectively, compounded by widespread corruption and impunity that prevent accountability and leave many high-profile cases unresolved. World Justice Project Mexico The World Justice Project (WJP) is a non-profit civil organisation that conducts research, com - pilation, and analysis of data on the Rule of Law in 140 countries. In the Index, which uses a scale from 0 to 1, 1 indicates the maximum adherence to the Rule of Law. One of the factors that WJP considers for Rule of Law is the “absence of corruption”, which is considered as the use of public power to obtain a private benefit in executive, legislative, and local judicial branches, and in the security and justice system. WJP considers three forms of
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