Enrique Mendez
La Jornada Newspaper
Tuesday, December 2, 2025, p. 5
The opinion of the Hydraulic Resources Commission regarding the new General Water Law and the reforms to the National Water Law includes 50 modifications to the presidential initiative, among others to limit the proportionality of the penalties for theft of the liquid and specify that only illegal extraction will be punished, but not the diversion of channels for family agricultural use.
The coordinator of Morena, Ricardo Monreal, explained in a document that article 123 bis 3 of the National Water Law defined fraud as the basis for determining the theft of the liquid, but the proportionality of the penalties is also provided for. “The greater the amount of water, the greater the penalty,” he explained.
In this way, the wording of the article provides that “whoever fraudulently transfers national waters for profit, knowing that they were extracted illegally, will be punished” with imprisonment of three months and a fine of 100 to 200 UMA, when the volume is less than 50 thousand liters.
If the amount is greater than or equivalent to 50 thousand liters, the penalty will be six months in prison and a fine of 150 to 250 UMA, details the opinion that will be voted on Wednesday in the commission and on Thursday in the plenary session of the Chamber.
With these changes, the commission explained in a document delivered to legislators, “article 123 bis 3 is restructured to detail the sanction based on the volume and the intentional (voluntary) action, the objectivity and precision of the criminal law is increased, ambiguity in judicial application is avoided and it is guaranteed that the penalty is proportional to the impact.”
In article 123 bis, instead of the sanction of two to 10 years in prison that was proposed, the modified article left three months to five years in prison and a fine of 200 to 250 UMA “for anyone who, without authorization, alters, diverts or obstructs the channels, vessels, currents or flows of national waters and directly affects the hydraulic conditions or endangers the lives of people or the safety of their property or vital ecosystems.”
“People who carry out this activity for personal, domestic and family agricultural use” are exempt from these sanctions.
Ricardo Monreal elaborated: “we do not seek to criminalize unduly, but rather to address serious cases.”
The president of the Chamber, Kenia López Rabadán (PAN), received representatives of agricultural sectors, irrigation districts, livestock unions and water service providers from 10 states, who gave her another package of proposals for changes, and the legislator appealed to the sensitivity of the benches to make more adjustments.
