Víctor Fuentes / Reform Agency
Friday, March 24, 2023 | 20:28
Mexico City.- Javier Laynez Potisek, Minister of the National Supreme Court of Justice, today suspended indefinitely the application of the so-called ‘Plan B’ to the National Electoral Institute (INE), which will be able to continue operating as it did before the reform promoted by the President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The Minister admitted today for processing the constitutional controversy of the INE against the reform of the General Law of Electoral Institutions and Procedures and other secondary laws, and granted a suspension that almost guarantees that the thinning of the electoral body sought by the Executive, and materialized by Morena and their allies in Congress, will not be able to materialize.
“The Investigating Minister granted the suspension requested by the INE regarding all the contested articles of the decree so that things remain in the state in which they are today and the provisions in force before the respective reform govern,” reported the Court.
“This suspension was granted because the Decree not only contains general rules but also specific acts of application, on which the suspension is generally granted. Likewise, the Court has ruled on previous occasions that in constitutional controversies it is appropriate to grant the suspension even in the case of laws, when they could irreparably violate human rights. In the case at hand, it is about the possible violation of the political-electoral rights of citizens,” he added.
The suspension will be in force during the time it takes the Court to process the controversy to resolve on the constitutionality of the reform, which, because it is an electoral matter, will surely be dispatched before the judicial recess that begins on July 15.
The Executive and Congress can challenge the suspension before one of the Chambers of the Court, but the processing of that appeal will take several weeks.
“The highest court is requested to grant a suspension and, while it pronounces on the merits of the controversies, the application of the reform is interrupted and, therefore, its effects in a particular way with regard to the affectation of the fundamental rights of those who make up the INE and the political rights of the citizenry”, requested the body in the lawsuit it filed to challenge this reform, published on March 2.
‘Plan B’ has a problem of origin, which will probably lead the Plenary Court to completely invalidate the reform without having to rule on its content.
Said problem is the haste with which it was approved in the Chamber of Deputies, where the Plenary voted on an Executive initiative the same day it was presented, which is contrary to multiple precedents of the Court on the minimum requirements that a procedure must meet legislative, especially in the case of a fundamental reform of the electoral system.
“In frank fraud of the law, they impacted the democratic quality of the reform, since it gave urgent processing to an initiative that by legal provision could not be submitted to it, it did not respect the principle of publicity, much less the deliberative one that governs the legislative body, preventing the participation of all political forces with parliamentary representation”, points out the INE controversy.
If this defect does not have eight votes to invalidate in the Plenary of the Court, then the content of the reform would be analyzed, to determine if the suppression of INE units and secretariats, and many other changes to the system of challenges and party rules political, jeopardizes the quality of democratic processes.
Although the 2024 electoral process will begin in September 2023, the Court is not obliged to resolve the controversy 90 days before, since this time limit only applies to the publication of new laws. In addition, when annulling laws on electoral matters, the Court routinely orders that the previous norms re-enter into force, a figure known as revival.
