translated from Spanish: Federal judge finally suspends AMLO power reform

A federal judge granted the final suspension that curbs the application of all provisions of the electricity reform, while resolving whether or not to grant the protection.
The effects of this precautionary measure, although requested only by two companies engaged in regulated activities in the electricity sector, must have general effects, he said.
Read: AMLO Power Reform: What does the president want and what are the alerts to the initiative?
It explained that granting a precautionary measure with particular effects, i.e. only for complaining ones, would not only be giving them a competitive advantage over other individuals in the same position, but could also cause distortions in the electricity industry, affecting competition and the development of the sector.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said that if the judges say that the Electric Law contravies the Constitution, he will present a constitutional reform initiative so that the issue can move forward.
The president insisted that his electricity reform is to benefit the country’s economy and that such legal resources are driven by entrepreneurs and political adversaries who benefited from energy privatization.
The controversy over reform
The reform of the Law on the Electricity Industry had already been approved by the Chamber of Deputies and by the Senate of the Republic, and published in the Official Journal of the Federation on March 9.
It was on March 11 that a federal competition judge granted a suspension of all effects of the reform. With the suspension, the effects of the Act were provisionally allowed to be stopped until it was finally resolved if the provisions of it contraviate the Constitution.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s response was to ask the Judiciary of the Federation to review the work of Judge Juan Pablo Gómez Fierro.
In turn, he sent a letter to the presiding minister of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, Arturo Saldívar, to determine and inform whether or not the judge should grant the protection.
Shortly the day after, the minister replied that his complaint would be referred to the relevant area of the Council of the Federal Judiciary “so that, if there are elements for them, the investigation that should be proceeded is opened.”
On March 16, the same judge granted three new provisional suspensions against the reform of the Electricity Industry Act. The companies that applied for legal recourse were Eólica de Oaxaca and Eólica de Tamaulipas.
Morena lawmakers have advocated the president’s proposed electricity reform by arguing that it seeks to foster a market of equal competition, which “recognizes the generation of electricity from clean energy for all generators and under a level playing field.”
Reform is one of the government’s priorities for 2021 and seeks to “strengthen” the Federal Energy Commission (CFE), as well as “bring order” into the national electricity system, to prevent abuses on behalf of private companies that are also in the national electricity market.
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Original source in Spanish