Opinion published on the disappearance of seven autonomous organizations

Fernando Camacho, Enrique Méndez and Arturo Sánchez

La Jornada Newspaper
Thursday, November 7, 2024, p. 13

In the opinion of the reform on the disappearance of seven autonomous organizations, only the reasons for eliminating them are presented, as well as the secretariats or entities to which their functions would be transferred, but it is not specified in detail how they will fulfill them.

Yesterday, the Chamber of Deputies announced this opinion and those related to the expansion of the catalog of crimes that merit informal preventive detention and the general animal welfare law, which will be discussed and voted on next week.

In the case of the National Institute of Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data (INAI), the project indicates that its functions of safeguarding the right of access to information, transparency policy and protection of personal data, will be assumed by the Secretariat of Public Function, which in the current government will be renamed as the Anti-Corruption and Good Government Secretariat.

It is even anticipated, without going into detail, that the same functions will be assumed by the control and disciplinary body of the Judiciary and the comptrollers of the Congress of the Union. This same scheme is replicated at the state level.

In turn, the commissioners of the INAI affirmed yesterday that they will continue seeking dialogue with legislators to avoid the disappearance of the organization. We will continue, until our last breath, insisting on the need for the prevalence of this institution of the Mexican Statesaid the president commissioner, Adrián Alcalá Méndez, when inaugurating the international forum on Good Practices in Clear and Accessible Language at the INAI headquarters.

We cannot forget it or hide it, but today the first reading of the initiative that seeks to eliminate the guarantor body is given. We must recognize what has been done and it is not for nothing that the latest national survey of Government Perception and Evaluation 2023 by Inegi indicates that Mexican men and women have high confidence in autonomous constitutional bodies, only behind their families, their neighbors and public schoolscommented the presiding commissioner.

We have earned this trust for more than two decades and we will continue, until our last breath, insisting on the need for the prevalence of this institution of the Mexican State.he added.

Issues related to political parties will be assumed by the National Electoral Institute, and what concerns unions by the Federal Center for Conciliation and Labor Registration and the Federal Court of Conciliation and Arbitration. The opinion does not detail how autonomy and transparency will be maintained in data management or what the federal government’s obligations will be to provide information requested by individuals.

Regarding the Federal Institute of Telecommunications (IFT), it will be the Secretariat of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation that will assume its tasks, but it does not specify how.

In the reform approved in recent weeks in which Petróleos Mexicanos and the Federal Electricity Commission recovered their status as state public companiesit was included that concessions regarding radio broadcasting and telecommunications will be granted by the IFT, which would mean a new contradiction between reforms approved in the Chamber of Deputies. Furthermore, the opinion to be voted on next week provides that, together with the public registry of concessions, which was in charge of the IFT, A National Infrastructure Information System will be established by the agency responsible for developing telecommunications and broadcasting policies of the federal government..

The opinion also anticipates that the work of the Federal Economic Competition Commission will pass to the Ministry of Economy, and those of the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy to the Inegi.

Likewise, the Secretariat of Energy will assume the tasks of the National Hydrocarbons and Energy Regulatory Commissions, and the Secretariat of Public Education, those of the National Commission for the Continuous Improvement of Education.

Also in these cases, there is no further detail of its operation or functions.