MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s Supreme Courtroom voted Monday to overturn a pair of electoral regulation reforms favored by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador as a result of Congress rushed them by way of to a vote with out debate, and even time to learn them.
Mexican excessive court docket overturns reforms rushed by way of Congress
Justice Jorge Pardo mentioned of one of many legal guidelines authorised final yr, “there weren’t even three hours between the time the invoice was despatched (to congress) and the time it was voted on.”
The Structure requires congress to contemplate and debate any legal guidelines it passes. In a single case, justices argued that modifications had been made to the textual content of one of many payments with out telling the legislators earlier than they voted on it.
The legal guidelines struck down on Monday concerned electoral guidelines limiting partisan exercise by politicians who maintain public places of work. López Obrador had sought to loosen limits on what public servants can say about electoral races, or how they’ll use authorities promoting.
The president’s workplace accused the nation’s highest court docket of overstepping its powers. On Sunday — apparently anticipating the ruling — the workplace claimed the vote “would violate the separation of powers” by overring the legislative department.
The justice argued the legislative department has to comply with its personal guidelines.
López Obrador has excessive approval rankings, and his Morena social gathering and its allies controls majorities in each home of congress. However as a result of the president doesn’t have the two-thirds majorities wanted to vary the Structure, he has typically resorted to ramming authorized modifications — a few of which violate the Structure — by way of the legislature.
The Supreme Courtroom ruling seems to boost the chance that extra just lately authorised legal guidelines might be struck down as nicely, as a result of they had been additionally rushed by way of congress.
For instance, in late April, Mexico’s Senate authorised 18 legal guidelines, together with main modifications to mining legal guidelines, in a couple of hours with no debate. The opposition occupied the Senate’s regular headquarters to protest a scarcity of debate on the measures, so the Morena senators and allies met in an alternate chamber and handed regulation after regulation previous midnight.
The court docket has already struck down a number of the president’s favored legal guidelines.
In April, the Supreme Courtroom dominated that final yr’s switch of the newly created Nationwide Guard from civilian to army management was unconstitutional.
The overwhelming majority of the Nationwide Guard’s members and management got here from Mexico’s army, however it was described within the Structure as a power underneath civilian command and positioned underneath the management of the civilian public safety ministry.
