After more than a decade of struggle, this Monday, March 13, Julio César Hernández Ballina, who was the husband of Mariana Lima Buendía, received the maximum sentence for the crime of femicide in the State of Mexico.
On June 28, Irinea Buendía, Mariana’s mother, will turn 13 without the presence of her daughter, murdered in Chimalhuacán in 2010.
This Monday, the Judiciary of the State of Mexico notified the conviction against his femicide, Julio César Hernández Ballinas, who received the maximum sentence of 70 years in jail.
The sentence handed down against Hernández Ballinas has been recognized and celebrated, as it is the result of the struggle of Irinea, who, as a result of the femicide of her daughter, is an activist and defender of women’s rights in the National Citizen Observatory on Femicide (OCNF).
It should be noted that the case of Mariana Lima Buendía gave rise to the first pronouncement of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) related to a femicide.
What happened to Mariana Lima Buendía?
Mariana, who was 28 years old, she was a victim of femicide by her husband Julio César Hernández Ballinas, commander of the judicial police of the municipality of Chimalhuacán, State of Mexico, on June 28, 2010.
Initially, Hernández Ballinas assured that the young woman had committed suicide; However, Irinea Buendía, Mariana’s mother, from the beginning demanded that the case be investigated as a femicide, since there was a history of violence on the part of her daughter’s husband: even, one day before her death, Mariana warned her mother of the violence she experienced from her partnerso he ended the relationship and returned to his parents’ house.
On July 13, 2010, after a brief investigation that excluded multiple essential pieces of evidence, experts from the Instituto de Servicios Periciales determined that the cause of death had been “asphyxia by hanging” and that there were no “typical struggle and struggle injuries”. It was thus that the authorities considered that everything corresponded to “maneuvers of suicidal origin”.
There began the struggle of Irinea and Mariana’s relatives for the search for justice. A search that lasted 13 years for the femicide to obtain a conviction for the femicide case.
The first case of femicide by the SCJN
After the first five years of struggle, in March 2015 the Supreme Court issued the sentence Mariana Limathrough which it ordered a reinvestigation, from a gender and human rights perspective, of the femicide of Mariana Lima Buendía, to compensate the damage for the omissions committed in the case.
The sentence achieved by Irinea Buendía and her family, as well as by her legal representatives, set a historical precedent for the case of Mariana and for the women victims of femicide in Mexico, since the highest Court issued specific guidelines for the investigation in cases of murders of women, highlighting mainly three provisions:
- All violent deaths of women must be investigated as femicide, with a gender perspective and based on the highest international standards.
- In all cases, it is necessary to collect and safeguard evidence to determine if the victim suffered sexual violence or if she lived in a context of violence.
- The State’s inaction and indifference to the cases lead to re-victimization and discrimination, for which reason those responsible must be punished.
They give maximum sentence to Mariana’s femicide
Despite having achieved the sentence in the SCJN, the fight of the Buendía family continued until this Monday, March 13, 2023.
Thirteen years after the death of Mariana Lima, the Judiciary of the State of Mexico notified the sentence of 70 years in prison handed down against Julio César Hernández Ballinas.
After the sentence was announced, the United Nations agency for gender equality and the empowerment of women (UN Women) applauded the commitment of Irinea Buendía and her fight over the years to clarify the femicide of her daughter .
Likewise, the Mexico City Attorney General’s Office (FGJCDMX) recognized the work of teacher Brenda Celina Bazán Varela, current Investigation Prosecutor for the Crime of Femicide of the FGJCDMX, who in 2015, after the ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN), was the Public Ministry responsible for integrating the investigation, now with a gender perspective, as ordered by the Court, which made it possible to obtain evidence that allowed the clarification of Mariana’s femicide.
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