Why didn’t the TEPJF choose a woman to preside over it and does it want her for the INE?: deputies

Enrique Mendez and Alma E. Muñoz

Newspaper La Jornada
Friday March 3, 2023, p. 13

The Political Coordination Board of the Chamber of Deputies agreed to ask the electoral magistrates why, if they want a president of the National Electoral Institute (INE), they did not choose a woman to direct the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary, After Janine Otálora.

As part of the confrontation between deputies and magistrates, the legislative coordinators in San Lázaro prepared a questionnaire, which also asked to clarify the legal basis of the court ruling, which calls for gender alternation in the presidency of the INE.

The Morena coordinator, Ignacio Mier, maintained that the aspiration of his bench is for a woman to preside over the INE, but the underlying problem is the court’s recurring violation of the Constitution and noted that the judges’ ruling does not stop the selection process, which enters a second stage when, this Friday, the list of applicants who met the registration requirements is published.

It considered serious that jurisdictional bodies such as the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary interpret the Constitution and assume exclusive powers of Congress, when only They are the mouth of the law and must guarantee the principle of legal certainty.

contempt risk

For all the benches, the court ruling of February 23 constitutes an interference and is impossible to comply with. Although this implies the risk that the magistrates determine contempt and seek to sanction the deputies, Leonel Godoy (Morena) abounded. In addition to the declaration of non-execution of the sentence, the Chamber is preparing a constitutional controversy.

In its ruling of February 23, which modified for the second time the call to elect four electoral advisers, the court ordered that a woman preside over the INE.

Given this position, during its meeting yesterday, the Coordination Board presented 14 questions to the court, but at the PRD’s proposal, it was agreed to reduce them, for media and forceful purposes.

Thus, the deputies called on the magistrates to answer whether the integration of the upper chamber, where there are only two women, complies with gender parity and, furthermore, who replaced magistrate Otálora as president.

They also asked if, by determining that a woman presides over the INE, it would be discriminatory for male applicants and non-binary people, who have already registered and met the requirements. What should be done with your acquired rights?the deputies questioned.

To support their sentence, the magistrates argued the gender alternation. Morena made a constitutional and legal review and concluded that there is no such term. Even so, the court was inquired about the support that determines the gender alternation as a mechanism for holding public office.