The First Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) unanimously issued this Wednesday a sentence that protects a citizen who requested force the Guadalajara City Council to answer the questions he asked him through Twitterwhich opens the door for all Mexicans to exercise their constitutional right to petition through social networks.
In this way, as the five ministers that make up the First Chamber voted in favor of this ruling, a mandatory precedent is created which will allow citizens to report deficiencies in public services, or request information from the authorities with an account on social networks, who will have the obligation to respond in the same media in which the request or claim is made.
The protection granted by the togados, whose project was prepared by the minister Jorge Mario Pardo Rebolledo, establishes that “requests made to an authority from the Twitter platform do find protection in Article 8 of the Constitution; as long as there is confirmation that: (a) the respective authority is the owner of the account from which said requests are made; and that (b) from the same, it performs acts of interaction with the citizenry”.
This case reached the Supreme Court because in 2021 a citizen requested information from the Guadalajara City Council, specifically, the plaintiff wanted that authority to provide him with data on the municipality’s public spending.
Due to the fact that the City Council’s Twitter account (@GuadalajraGob) did not respond, the citizen promoted an indirect amparo so that a District judge forced the authority to respond on that social network, considering that the request was made in exercise of the right of Petition contemplated in Article 8 of the Magna Carta.
In the first instance, the amparo was dismissed, although the plaintiff filed an Appeal for Review that was the responsibility of the Fourth Collegiate Court in Administrative Matters of Jalisco to resolve. However, because it was an extremely novel issue, which included a human right contemplated in the Constitution, the same Court requested that the Supreme Court be the one to substantiate it.
Thus, unanimously, the First Chamber of the Court established that Yes, it is possible to exercise the constitutional right of petition through social networks, for which reason it ordered the City Council of the Jalisco capital to formally respond to the citizen’s request also through Twitter.
Given that the complainant expressly authorized the respective responses to be communicated to him through the “twitter” platform, the Guadalajara City Council may use said social network for this purpose; without prejudice to the fact that, if so determined, it may also notify the agreements at any known address of the complainant”, the sentence points out.
The ministers added that the protection granted will only be fulfilled when there is evidence that the citizen has already received the information requested from the City Council.
This ruling answered the question of whether citizen petitions made to an authority’s Twitter account are covered by the “right to petition,” protected by Article 8 of the Constitution.
The answer is yes, well Requests made to an authority that has a Twitter account must be answered by it.considering the obligation imposed by that numeral of the Magna Carta, which determines that public officials and employees have the obligation to respect the exercise of the right of petition of citizens, provided that this is formulated in writing, peacefully and respectful
The sentence adds that citizen requests – made through Twitter or any other social network – must necessarily obtain a response from the authority.
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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.
