The Specialized Chamber of the Electoral Tribunal of the Judicial Power of the Federation (TEPJF) considered that the decree approved on March 17, which allows public servants to disseminate and promote the consultation of revocation of mandate, is not applicable for the exercise of April 10 or for ongoing electoral processes.
The Constitution states that amendments to electoral rules must be approved and published at least 90 days before the start of elections.
“Federal and local electoral laws must be promulgated and published at least ninety days before the beginning of the electoral process in which they are to be applied, and during it there may be no fundamental legal modifications,” says Article 105.
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Presiding Magistrate Rubén Lara and Judges Luis Espíndola and Gabriela Villafuerte agreed that it cannot be applied at this time because it does not comply with the temporality established in the Constitution.
During the session, Judge Gabriela Villafuerte pointed out that the validity of this decree applies as of this Friday, March 18, but that it is not applicable for the revocation of the mandate that is in progress.
“This specification of the scope of the concepts to which the decree refers has the character of fundamental and therefore, should not govern for the electoral processes that have already begun because then the application of the principles that govern these electoral exercises could be altered, at least that of certainty, which implies that all the people who are going to participate actively in the processes and who are going to vote, they must be very clear,” said the presiding judge of the Chamber, Rubén Lara.
He said that applying the decree in the ongoing processes would alter the certainty of what are the rules to which they are subject, to which they will submit and that will determine the routes of these processes, at least that of legal certainty, that of legality and that of non-retroactivity of the norms.
However, the magistrates agreed that the eventual discussion about its constitutionality or not through controversies or actions before the Court will be at another time in which that chamber has no interference.
The debate on the decree occurred while analyzing a complaint against President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and other officials where it was confirmed that the president carried out personalized government propaganda in a prohibited period during the Third Government Report, which he submitted on December 1, 2021.
The bill presented by Judge Luis Espíndola determined that the infraction by the President of the Republic existed, because as of December 1, the electoral processes in Aguascalientes, Durango, Tamaulipas and Oaxaca were already underway.
“He talks about health, he talks about pensions, he talks about scholarships, about fighting corruption, he talks about education, it would be logical in a message like the one we are talking about, it has to be the content of this type of pronouncements, the thing is that this message is issued on this date, when there are already electoral processes initiated, in at least four entities,” said the presiding judge of the Chamber, Rubén Lara.
The approved ruling included some measures of non-repetition of these infringing behaviors of some public servants, including ordering the spokesman of the Presidency and the local electoral institutes of Aguascalientes, Oaxaca, Tamaulipas and Durango, to publish extracts of the resolution.
It was also determined to give a hearing of this sentence to the Internal Control Body of the Presidency and the Technical Unit of electoral litigation, among other instances.
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