Mexico City.- Citizens and companies affected by the massive expropriation of land for the Mayan Train have challenged the measure before the Federal Judiciary.
Adrián Zepeda Novelo, first district judge in Yucatán in charge of all protections against this project, admitted between May and December 2022 at least 16 lawsuits rejecting expropriation decrees, declarations of public utility, presidential orders, immediate occupation of properties , or simple verbal orders to vacate land.
Records of the Federal Judicial Council (CJF) indicate that Zepeda has granted nine suspensions to prevent evictions, six of them in Campeche, one in Yucatán and another in Quintana Roo, most between November and December.
In Yucatán, for example, the Comibaq company defends the San José Sudzal farm, between kilometers 83 and 85 of the Mérida-Cancún highway, where ICA is carrying out work on Section Four, which runs from Izamal to Cancún.
Granelera y Agropecuaria Campechana, for its part, demands the order issued by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on August 27 to immediately occupy 24 properties that cover 355,000 square meters in five municipalities of that entity, without expropriation.
Magno Gas, LP gas distributor in the municipality of Santa Rosa Tenabo, halfway between Campeche and Calkiní, is litigating against the order to deliver a 6,909-square-meter piece of land.
“The order and illegal verbal requirement dated August 29, 2022, for the delivery and eviction of the rustic property located in the Candelaria community, of the Municipality of Candelaria, Campeche, with an area of 2,506 square meters,” is the act that claimed José Antonio Pérez Chabez.
Both Pérez and other groups of complainants have accused that the military, police and state prosecutors, as well as federal officials, are the ones who have required them to vacate their properties, based on presidential orders for immediate occupation.
Occupation orders are provided for in the Expropriation Law. But a problem for the Government could be that, when executing them, the authorities extend to properties or fractions not contemplated in the decrees.
In six appeals, Zepeda denied the suspension, since those affected question expropriations in which the federal Executive did give them the right to a hearing and they have been offered compensation, which does not mean that the judge has already ruled on the legality of the decrees.
Two examples are BP Promotions, the trade name of the Tulum Country Club subdivision, as well as the Bahía Príncipe hotel, which challenged the expropriation of several properties in that municipality, decreed on August 1.
Suspensions have also been denied to people who only present simple copies of documents to prove that they own the property.
