The Seventeenth District Court in Administrative Matters of Mexico City ordered the Senate to issue an agreement so that in that sovereignty they can be elected to two new directors of the National Institute of Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data (INAI), since there will soon be another vacancy, which will imply that the autonomous body cannot hold sessions, making the right to information of Mexicans inoperative.
During the last 10 months, the senators have failed to name the replacements for the councilors Óscar Mauricio Guerra Ford and Rosendoevgueni Monterrey Chepov, who concluded their functions in the INAI Plenary in March 2022.
Given this delay, the judge Celina Angelica Quintero Rico It granted a provisional suspension to the INAI Consultative Council and to the civil organization Consejo Nacional de Litigio Estratégico, who jointly promoted an Amparo Trial against the omissions of the Senate.
The INAI Plenary is made up of seven commissioners, and can function with a minimum of five, as it has done since April of last year, however, at the end of next March there will be another vacancy in that institution, therefore, if the replacements of the two directors who left their position in 2022 are not appointed beforehand, the body will no longer be able to meet or take any decision on transparency.
According to the head of the Seventeenth District Court in Administrative Matters of the country’s capital, senators cannot omit the mandate established in article 6 of the Constitution, since the power to appoint INAI advisers is not optional for the High camera.
In the same way, when granting the suspension, the togada argued that, since the vacancies in the INAI Plenary were not filled, citizens see their right of access to information and protection of personal data affected.
Since the INAI is the guarantor of these rights, it is not justified that the senators have stopped complying with the appointments, since the legislators already have, as of April 2, 2022, a list of 13 suitable people to be INAI advisers , which was drawn up by the Justice and Anti-Corruption, Transparency and Citizen Participation Commissions of the same Senate.
According to the INAI Advisory Council, the amparo promoted aims to force the Upper House to fill the vacancies in the autonomous body, so that “citizens are not deprived of human rights and transparency policies, access to public information, accountability, and protection of personal data”.
uncomfortable organisms
This case is very similar to the one that occurred with three vacancies in the Federal Economic Competition Commission (Cofece), another of the country’s constitutionally autonomous bodies. These institutions are not to the liking of the current administration headed by the president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has said that they are useless and very burdensome in budgetary matters.
The constitutionally autonomous bodies are not part of any of the three branches of the Mexican State (Executive, Legislative and Judicial), since they fulfill a counterweight function for them, especially for the presidency.
In November of last year, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation determined that it was the omission of the president is unconstitutional in the selection of three candidates for Cofece directors, for which reason it imposed a period of 30 calendar days on the president to fulfill that duty, sending the respective lists to the Senate.
On that occasion, the country’s highest court reminded the head of the Executive Power that “there is a power of compulsory exercise”, indicated in article 28 of the Constitution, so that he sends to the Upper House the list of people who should occupy the three commissioner vacancies that had existed since 2021 at Cofece.
In fact, as could happen with the INAI, the Federal Economic Competition Commission operated for more than a year with only four of its seven commissioners, so that in that period it could not make any relevant decision, since its resolutions The most important must be approved by a supermajority of five commissioners.
In the case of the INAI, the Senate must abide by what was ordered in the suspension by the judge Celina Angelica Quintero Rico before next April 1, because if the vacancies remain unfilled, from that date the INAI Plenary will not be able to hold any session, stopping the resolutions with which this body orders the delivery of public information to government entities, when they refuse to provide it to citizens.
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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.