Chihuahua.– The human rights expert lawyer Gabriel Alejandro Vidaña Manjarrez considered that the review that the state education authorities intend to carry out on the backpacks of thousands of basic education students is illegal, once the Easter holidays are over.
“The problem is that they want to impose a mandatory review of the backpacks of children and adolescents without a legal framework that provides that legal basis for its operation, and for this reason it would be unconstitutional, intimacy, privacy and privacy are violated. participation, as well as the principle of the best interests of the children of the students who attend public and private schools of basic education”, he stressed.
He added that the First Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation established that the program is unconstitutional as it operates without a legal framework to support it.
Consensus, the key in its application
The “Safe Backpack” program is unconstitutional as long as it operates without a legal framework that supports the mandatory inspection of students’ belongings; However, given the duty of care of the school authorities, teachers and other educators who are responsible for children and adolescents during their stay in educational centers, it is feasible that such reviews exist based on consensual schemes in which students and parents express their express, free and informed consent.
This is so, he explained, based on articles 1, 3, 4, 16 and 21 of the General Constitution of the United Mexican States, from which the possibility of frontal action by the educational authorities in prevention tasks can be deduced. that allow mitigating security risks on school campuses, he said.
The authorities must always consider unrestricted respect for human rights and individual guarantees, the lawyer concluded.
