SCJN Curbs AMLO’s Discretionary Spending on Government Savings

The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) invalidated the discretionary power of President AMLO to dispose of savings from austerity measures at his convenience. With 9 votes in favor and 2 against, the Plenary of the Court annulled on Monday, April 4, 2022, a part of article 61 of the Federal Law of Republican Austerity (LFAR), in a paragraph that allows the resources saved by austerity measures to be allocated to what “by decree determines the Head of the Executive”, that is, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.The above, according to the majority of Ministers, violates the Constitutional power of the Chamber of Deputies to authorize the Expenditure Budget.Read more: At what time will the polls close for the Revocation of AMLO’s Mandate?” (Flexibility in budgetary rules) cannot go so far as to the Chamber of Deputies renouncing its exclusive power to determine the destination and amount of federal public spending, delegating that power to the Executive, since this frustrates the function that the Constitution attributes to it exclusively: to exercise effective democratic control over federal public spending.” affirms the sentence. Minister Javier Laynez stressed that, since 1997, legal reforms have been made in terms of budgetary control to limit the discretion of the Executive, and that for years it has been foreseen that the savings generated by efficiencies will be allocated by the executors of the expenditure for the programs already approved by the Chamber of Deputies. The difference in this case is that the faculty is totally open. That would allow financing subsidies, programs, actions, works that had been rejected by the Chamber of Deputies. It is unconstitutional because it is a totally open faculty,” he added. Three Ministers even voted for the total invalidity of Article 61; that is, also by the party that authorizes the executors of the expenditure to use the savings in programs already approved, or foreseen in the National Development Plan.The Ministers Yasmín Esquivel and Loretta Ortiz were the only dissidents. LFAR measures include restricting the use of official aircraft for safety, salute or civil protection matters; the prohibition of buying luxury vehicles or furniture, as well as of remodeling offices for aesthetic purposes; the contracting of insurance of major measured expenses, savings or individualized separation, among others. Read more: Armed Forces will monitor the exercise of revocation of mandate as if they were electionsIf the federal agencies render, as of 2020, separate annual reports on their savings due to Republican austerity, the Executive has not issued any decree to dispose of these funds. In 2021, the federal government spent 510 billion pesos above what was originally budgeted – 60 percent, for support for Pemex and the Dos Bocas Refinery – but it is not clear if any percentage of this amount came from savings from austerity measures.



Original source in Spanish