Iván Evair Saldaña
La Jornada Newspaper
Monday, October 20, 2025, p. 16
The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) holds today, for the first time in its history, a public hearing with social groups, in which the ministers will listen to people with disabilities before resolving the unconstitutionality action 182/2024, promoted by the State Commission on Human Rights of Michoacán.
The project, prepared by Minister Lenia Batres, proposes to modify the criterion that the Court has held during the recent decade, which automatically invalidated laws that had not been previously consulted with people with disabilities. However, members of social organizations that will participate in the hearing warned The Day that, if such a modification were approved, their rights would be restricted, since human rights commissions would be allowed to act only at the direct request of a person with a disability.
Marco Polo López Santos, representative in Oaxaca of the Movement of People with Disabilities, pointed out that the proposal limits the constitutional powers of the Human Rights commissions, established in article 105, and reduces the guarantee of consultation to a formal procedure, when in reality – he assured – “it is a substantive right that directly affects the life and rights of people with disabilities.
“If a change of criteria of this nature is approved, we would be losing the guarantee that when a law is created without prior consultation, it will be automatically invalidated by the Court. Therefore, the Human Rights commissions, both state and national, must maintain their power to file unconstitutionality actions on their own,” he stressed.
The unconstitutionality action 182/2024 was to be discussed in plenary session on October 13, but the analysis was postponed after social organizations requested to be heard, based on general agreement 5/2025, which gave rise to the new public hearing mechanism. The call, issued on October 14, was extended from one day to three days –until October 22–, after 306 applications were received; however, only 102 were accepted.
Collectives denounced that the process was not entirely accessible. Martha García Álvarez, from the Movement of People with Disabilities, indicated that the deadlines were “very short, just three days,” and that there was a lack of easy-to-read formats and platforms compatible with screen readers, which limited the participation of people with intellectual or visual disabilities.
“Registration on the Supreme Court platform is also not very accessible for screen readers… Accessibility measures are not really there. And that may be the first reflection of what this hearing is going to be like,” he warned.
The hearing will take place from 12 to 4 p.m. at the Court headquarters, with the participation of members of the organizations Parents and Children with Intellectual Disabilities, A World on Wheels and Latido Colibrí, as well as international groups such as Human Rights Watch.
