On November 22, 2017, the First Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJN) declared, by unanimous vote, that the possibility that, when trying to prove the commission of a crime, (i) Mexico's Attorney General, or any empowered officer, or (ii) State Public Prosecutors, or, if applicable, the Deputy Attorney General in each state may directly request, from Credit Institutions, through the National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV), any information, data, or documentation generated as a result of the transactions executed and the services received by their clients and/or users, pursuant to the Credit Institutions Act (CIA), Article142, is unconstitutional.
Since such information is deemed confidential and, therefore, carries a fundamental privacy right for individuals, the SCJN concluded that such confidential information must be requested to the CNBV, once a prior judicial request and authorization has been filed and obtained. Allowing any authority to interfere with the aforementioned right is a violation of the Constitution, Article 16, which regulates the conditions under which the State, in the legal exercise of its investigating faculties, may interfere with fundamental rights. Furthermore, the need for a prior request by a judicial authority is established. Therefore, the Chamber did not find a valid legal reason for requesting information protected by financial or banking secrecy.
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