Rolando Herrera and Claudia Salazar / Reform Agency
Wednesday, April 19, 2023 | 7:25 p.m.
Mexico City.- While Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard described the Supreme Court’s decision to consider the transfer of the National Guard to the National Defense as an error, the head of the Interior, Adán Augusto, challenged the ministers to explain their decision to citizens.
Ebrard said that it is a mistake because it affects the work that the corporation has been doing.
Interviewed in Acapulco, where he witnessed the announcement of the new security strategy for the port, he said that the resolution is given just when the positive results of the GN in the country begin to be seen.
“From my point of view, it is a mistake to start discussing the nature of the National Guard right now when we are beginning to obtain results,” he said.
Yesterday, by a majority of nine votes to three, the Plenary of the Court determined that the transfer of the National Guard to the Sedena ordered by a law approved by Congress in September 2022 is illegal because the Constitution establishes that it is of a civilian police force.
To justify the supposed positive results of the GN, Ebrard referred to the data from the INEGI National Survey of Urban Public Security, which establishes that in March 2023, 62.1 percent of the population aged 18 and over, resident in 75 cities in the country, he considered that it is unsafe to live in his town.
The foregoing, detailed the INEGI, represents a statistically significant change in relation to the percentages registered in December 2022 and March 2023 (64.2 and 66.2 percent, respectively.
“Although the security problem continues to be very serious, perhaps in many places the first, there is an improvement in public perception compared to the last quarter, that is, progress is gradually being made in an important way.
“Now, there is a decrease in the feeling of insecurity of four, a little more than four percent. At that moment when you are starting to have results, ‘ah, no! Well now we are going to question the National Guard’. It is a mistake, that goes against the safety of people beyond the opinion of each one,” he considered.
In addition to witnessing the launch of the new security strategy for Acapulco, Ebrard accompanied Mayor Abelina López, at the installation of the Municipal Council for Citizen Participation in Public Security.
During this last ceremony, Ebrard indicated that Mexico will join Europol, which is the cooperation agency for European police forces, and that the first exchange of experiences will take place in Acapulco.
“A first call has already been carried out, a first session more than a call, for the design of what the quadrants are going to be, the proximity police, the experiences they have in Europe, that is to say that it is known that this is a program or strategy that has the backing of some of the best police forces in the world today,” he said.
Reta Adán Augusto to ministers
The Secretary of the Interior, Adán Augusto Lopez, challenged the ministers of the Supreme Court to take to the streets to explain the impact of their ruling on declaring the measure to transfer the National Guard to the Sedena unconstitutional.
In his opinion, the decision of the majority of the Court was political and not legal.
“They took into account a decision with a political criterion, not a legal criterion.
“Now that they go to the streets and tell the citizens, the people of Mexico, why they do not agree that everyone’s security be built, from a formation, an example of institutionality, such as the members of the armed forces,” he said in an interview in the Senate, after the delivery of the Belisario Domínguez medal to Elena Poniatowska.
He reiterated the position given by President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador against the ministers.
“We have already said that it is unfortunate that 8 Supreme Court ministers acted as occasional constitutionalists,” he said.
