Courts order to suspend debate on judicial reform

Gustavo Castillo Garcia

The newspaper La Jornada
Sunday, September 1, 2024, p. 3

Two federal courts have granted suspensions that prevent the Chamber of Deputies from approving the ruling that reforms the Federal Judicial Branch (PJF) for an indefinite period of time. One of them orders that the ruling not be analyzed or voted on until the trial is finally resolved; the second, that if the legislative process continues, the decree not be sent to the state congresses for approval.

The first appeal was filed by judges Perla Fabiola Estrada, Ignacio Pérez Aguirre, Lizbeth Martínez Arias and Eduardo Antonio Velasco Treviño, and the precautionary measure was granted in flat by her peer Martha Eugenia Magaña López, one of the most active against the constitutional amendments that seek to make ministers, judges and magistrates elected by popular vote. The petitioners for this protection are assigned to the eighteenth circuit, which also includes Magaña López.

The second, requested by justice administrators whose names have not been published, was granted by Judge Felipe Consuelo Soto, who was suspended in 2017 by the Federal Judicial Council (CJF), considering him responsible for irregularities during the bankruptcy of Mexicana, a process of which he was in charge between 2010 and 2012.

Both suspensions halt the legislative process and its approval that would begin this Monday. But the first of them, granted within file 1251/2024 by the fifth district court based in Cuernavaca, Morelos, a jurisdictional body in charge of Magaña López, was granted so that the draft opinion regarding the initiative that reforms, adds to and repeals various provisions of the federal Constitution shall not have any effect for the complainantswhich implies That said project in particular may not be discussed and voted on by the Chamber of Deputies of the new legislature.

The agreement issued yesterday within the amparo trial 1251/2024 indicates that the suspension is appropriate, since “at the moment that the legislative process is underway (…) it is feasible to suspend the challenged act to analyze it (…) since the legality of the proposed modifications has not materialized.”

He also maintains that it was considered appropriate to grant the appeal since The impact on the complainants will occur when the reform procedure is completedthat is to say, Once the project is discussed, voted on and approved by the federal Congress and subsequently by the local Congress, and granting the protection of the federal justice system when that occurs, “would leave the complainants in a complete state of defenselessness, who are proposed to be removed from their positions without the right to a hearing and without establishing the conditions for any eventual compensation.

If the complainants are to be removed from their positions as federal judges without the right to a hearing and without the right to any compensation, and it would be sufficient to amend the text of the Constitution, it is clear that the suspension must be granted so that the act they claim is not formalized in the supreme law (the Constitution), since doing so would be unassailable.he emphasizes.

On the other hand, the third district court based in Chiapas, in charge of Felipe Consuelo Soto, granted a suspension so that in case the Congress of the Union approves the reform to the PJF, its resolutions are not sent for approval to the local congresses, until it resolves on the merits whether the final appeal is granted, since it considers that If the requested legislative process were allowed to culminate, the amparo trial from which this incident arises would be without subject matter, since it would be impossible to repair the damages caused to the human rights that the complainants consider violated, given that article 61, section I, of the Amparo Law establishes the inadmissibility of the respective trial against additions or reforms to the Constitution..

The resolution, which has not been placed on the CJF’s list of agreements, states that It is appropriate to grant an ex officio suspension of the effects and consequences of the contested acts, so that the responsible authorities that constitute the Congress of the Union, that is, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, within the scope of their powers, continue with the legislative process, and in the event of the eventual approval of the constitutional reform decree that constitutes the root of the contested act, refrain from sending it to the legislatures of the states and Mexico City for the corresponding approval, until such time as the definitive suspension is resolved..