The popular consultation to prosecute former presidents, promoted by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, would be unconstitutional, according to the project of Minister Luis María Aguilar.
Alongside the resolution, the SCJN reported that Minister Aguilar’s draft will be discussed at the meeting on 1 October.
Among other things, the project notes that the popular consultation should be considered unconstitutional because “the subject matter requested to consult, according to its design and content, entails in itself a restriction of the human rights of Mexicans and Mexicans and an impact on guarantees for their protection, by conditioning their effectiveness and execution on the outcome of that participatory mechanism; distorting its purpose and purpose.”
He argues that “popular consultation may violate the presumption of innocence of persons to whom public scrutiny will be subjected, which is unconstitutional for violating the right to due process, but it can also have a negative effect on the rights of potential victims, offended and in society at large.”
Read: AMLO sends the petition to the Senate to try former presidents; this is the question they would ask in the consultation
It argues that the way in which the question was drafted, by identifying those the consultation proposes to investigate, “may violate the presumption of innocence of the persons who served as President of the Republic in past periods”.
According to Minister Luis María Aguilar, the consultation violates and restricts human rights recognized in the Constitution.
“Popular consultation cannot subject to popular will decisions that in any sense involve a restriction of human rights or their guarantees of protection, which in the case is noted by the multiple constitutional violations that are even individually sufficient to sustain the unconstitutionality of the object of the intended popular consultation, as explained below,” he says.
“This Constitutional Court has held that the purpose of providing information—even in the case of events of national interest—cannot justify violation of people’s presumption of innocence by exposing them to the media as a
guilty,” reads in the project.
The First Chamber of the SCJN also considers that “the violation of the human rights of those accused of the commission of a crime can have a corrupting effect throughout the criminal proceedings”.
“In sum, this Supreme Court considers that the subject matter of the proposed popular consultation is unconstitutional because its substance and implementation, in themselves, if held, would have a restriction effect on human rights and their guarantees,” the minister says in his project.
Project of Minister Luis María Aguilar on the popular consultation 1/2020, which will be discussed at the session of 1 October.
? https://t.co/YdOZNBXp9L
— Supreme Court (@SCJN) September 24, 2020
Upon learning the news, President López Obrador asked ministers to act with restricted adherence to the law and not be intimidated, to act with judgment, which also, “although they resolve in accordance with those established in the laws, take into account the feeling of the people”.
On September 15, the representative sent the request for consultation to the SCJN even though, according to him, citizens did manage to gather the signatures needed to make the petition to the Senate.
That day, the president read the document in which he argues that former presidents committed corrupt acts during his tenure, with full knowledge of them.
The question posed in the document is: “You agree or do not agree with the competent authorities in accordance with the applicable laws and procedures, investigate and, where appropriate, sanction the alleged commission of crimes by former Presidents Carlos Salinas, Ernesto Zedillo, Vicente Fox, Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto, before, during and after their respective efforts.”
Information in process.
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