Given the imminent paralysis that the National Institute of Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data (INAI) will suffer, the Advisory Council of that body promoted an incident before a federal Court in order to oblige the Senate to immediately appoint the two directors who will fill the same number of vacancies, after the veto exercised by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador over the two people who had already been appointed.
The incident was presented before the judge Celina Angelica Quintero Rico, head of the Seventeenth District Court in Administrative Matters of Mexico City, who already granted, since March 3, a definitive suspension so that the Senate stops omitting its obligation to fill the vacancies that have remained in the INAI since the April 1, 2022.
The INAI Plenary is made up of seven commissioners, and can function with a minimum of five, as it has done since April last year. However, at the end of this month of March there will be another vacancy in that institution, so, even if the Senate names the two advisers this Wednesday, at least in the first 13 days of the month of April, the INAI Plenary will be inoperative, since it will not have a legal quorum to meet.
Thanks to an Amparo Trial promoted by the INAI Advisory Council and the civil organization National Council for Strategic Litigation, on March 1 the Senate appointed Ana Yadira Alarcon Marquez already Rafael Luna Alviso as new INAI advisers, but these were vetoed by the president.
Specifically, the president said that these appointments were the product of a “rinsing” in the Senate, sovereignty in which Morena and the opposition reached an agreement to carry out the appointments.
“I cannot become an accomplice, I cannot establish relations of complicity with anyone. It’s not a warning or a threat.It is simply zero corruption, zero impunity, no negotiations in the dark, because without a doubt there was an agreement,” López Obrador said last week when explaining his veto.
Faced with the presidential objection, the INAI announced that it would present a Constitutional Controversy before the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, since the lack of appointment of two people as members of its Plenary, directly violates the institutional design established by the Constitution for this autonomous body.
Added to this demand is now the incident of the INAI Advisory Council, promoted within the Amparo Trial that already has a definitive suspension. The objective is to obtain a determination from Judge Celina Angélica Quintero Rico, so that the Senate does not maintain the vacancies and appoints two new counselors before the end of March.
paralysis is a fact
Considering the constitutional provisions that allow the president a second veto of the councilors that the Senate may appoint, at least in the first 13 days of the month of April, the INAI will not be able to meet, assuming that this Wednesday the upper house will make the election of those who will fill the vacancies.
But if the senators continue to delay the appointments, the paralysis of the body could extend to the entire month of April, because the head of the federal Executive has a period of 10 business days to object -for the second time- to the INAI advisers that they be elected
Thus, in the event that the Senate elects the councilors this Wednesday, and taking into account that the five days of Holy Week are non-working days for the INAI, the president has the limit to exercise his veto until April 12.
Ergo, if there is no veto, from April 13 the new councilors could take office, on the other hand, if the president vetoes the elected ones again, from that same date the Senate can hold a new election in the that López Obrador no longer has a veto, in accordance with article 6, section A, section VIII of the Constitution.
After the first veto already exercised by the president, the Senate must now elect the INAI councilors with the vote of three fifths of the members of the Upper House present at the session.
In the event that the second appointment is also objected to by the president, the Senate, also with a vote of three fifths of its members present, will appoint the commissioners. The latter can no longer be vetoed by the head of the federal Executive.
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surya palaces Journalist and lawyer, specialist in legal analysis and human rights. She has been a reporter, radio host and editor.
