In the days following September 1, 1982, as a result of the bank expropriation, President José López Portillo realized that the bank expropriation decrees were unconstitutional, and that the Supreme Court—in a moment of independence not seen in decades — could tear them down. Therefore, the president decided to promote a change to the Constitution so that these decrees were now constitutional. These reforms were processed in Congress and the Senate at great speed. López Portillo completed the constitutional change before leaving the Presidency and the bankers’ protection was rejected by the Supreme Court almost a year later: a majority of the ministers (all but two, Atanasio González Martínez and Alfonso López Aparicio), decided not to get to the bottom of the matter, if the Supreme Court could review the constitutionality of a constitutional reform and approved the effects of the constitutional change retroactively (see the testimonies of Atanasio González Martínez and Judge Efraín Polo Bernal), who admitted at first instance the protection of the bankers in the book The nationalization of banks 25 years later. The story told by its protagonistspublished by the Espinosa Yglesias Studies Center. Submission to the Executive Power was practically total. The impact of that decision on our rule of law was felt for many years and ended up putting the finishing touches on it. It took two six-year terms to reform President Zedillo’s Judicial Branch, which finally gave the Supreme Court and the Judicial Branch as a whole autonomy and independence from the Executive Branch.
Former President López Obrador’s attacks on the Judiciary and, now, President Sheinbaum’s renewed disregard for laws and judicial resolutions, aim to put us back in those times when the president in office ordered over the Judiciary and the Supreme Court. Court. The definitive suspension issued by Judge Nancy Juárez Salas of the 19th District Court of Veracruz, which ordered the withdrawal of the Official Gazette of the promulgation of the judicial reform because it was considered unconstitutional, was received with a declaration of contempt by President Claudia Sheinbaum and a complaint against the judge before the Judicial Council, instead of going to the higher judicial instance . Furthermore, the cyber and advertising attacks against the judge did not wait long. Where was President Sheinbaum’s oath to uphold the Constitution?
And now, in the same way as López Portillo at the time, Claudia Sheinbaum resorts to the same strategy in the face of a possible Court decision that declares legislative overrepresentation or judicial reform unconstitutional: Sheinbaum orders a change to the Constitution.
To this end, the Morena bench in the Senate has just introduced an initiative that proposes changes to several articles of the Constitution. Thus, it adds a paragraph at the end of article 103 that talks about cases that may be constitutional controversies to explicitly point out that: “Exceptions are… the reforms and additions to this Constitution, its form, procedure and substance, against which no trial or appeal is possible, in any case.”. Likewise, in article 105, which talks about the matters that the Supreme Court can hear, it states that: “Constitutional controversies or unconstitutionality actions that seek to challenge the additions or reforms to this Constitution, including its deliberative, legislative and correlative voting process, as well as those that seek to challenge the resolutions or declarations of the authorities competent in electoral matters, are inadmissible.”.
Furthermore, the initiative sent by Morena adds a paragraph in section II of article 107, which adds: “The amparo trial will not proceed against additions or reforms to this Constitution, including its deliberative, legislative and correlative voting process, as well as those that seek to contest the resolutions or declarations of the authorities competent in electoral matters.”.
The messages that President Sheinbaum sends are ominous. She does not abide by the laws she does not like, and if the laws she makes are unconstitutional, then she changes the Constitution. What kind of rule of law is this? Who is going to believe the President when she says that she respects the rule of law? How sure are we citizens going to feel that our rights are respected? What businessmen are going to want to invest in Mexico if the laws, including the Constitution, can be changed in the event of any change in the President’s mood? Who is going to feel morally obliged to comply with the laws if the President is the first to violate them? What citizen guarantees do we have? What example are you setting to those in power?
This is increasingly becoming a jungle where the law of the fittest will prevail; where social coexistence is not governed by laws but by the force of whoever holds power, whether civil, military or organized crime.
This is how we are.
