This Wednesday, the First Chamber of the Supreme Court of the Nation (SCJN) is scheduled to resolve two acts demanded by the Congress of Tamaulipas related to the removal of the immunity of the PAN governor Francisco Javier García Cabeza de Vaca, as well as the arrest warrant against him, accused of the crimes of organized crime and money laundering.
The draft resolutions to these two constitutional controversies are not public, but are expected to be presented by Minister Juan Luis González Alcántara Carrancá. This analysis of the First Chamber, which will define the course of García Cabeza de Vaca, could be given four days before the elections to define his successor in Tamaulipas, where according to polls the candidate of Morena, Américo Villarreal, is emerging as the leader.
In the first case, the local Congress challenged the removal of García Cabeza de Vaca’s immunity resolved by the Chamber of Deputies on April 30, 2021, an act that was not approved by the local Legislature, where at that time there was a majority of the PAN. The challenge to the arrest warrant against the governor obtained by the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) in May 2021 will also be resolved.
Javier Martín Reyes, associate professor of the Legal Studies Division of the Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE), said in an interview with Political Animal that what will be discussed is who has the last word in the process of removing the immunity of governors: the local Congress or the Chamber of Deputies?
“There is an interpretation that says that the last word is the Chamber of Deputies and what it says is that the moment a governor’s immunity is taken away, then he can already be criminally prosecuted because his immunity from prosecution has already been removed. But there is another interpretation, which I think is correct, which says that when it comes to local officials you need the declaration of the Chamber of Deputies and also of the local Congress, “said the also constitutional lawyer.
Although these two cases are scheduled, with the numbers 50/2021 and 70/2021, the five ministers that make up the First Chamber of the SCJN can leave them on the list to be resolved in the coming weeks.
The García Cabeza de Vaca case
The process of removing the immunity of the governor of Tamaulipas began at the beginning of 2021 at the request of the FGR, for the crimes attributed to him of money laundering, criminal association and tax fraud.
The governor is implicated in possible money laundering operations for more than 100 million pesos, with resources that would come, allegedly, from possible acts of corruption and even triangulations with money linked to drug trafficking.
In the indictments for his immunity, the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) accused the state president of simulating the sale of an apartment in Santa Fe, in Mexico City, as part of a money laundering scheme.
According to the FIU investigation, the governor sold the property in 2019 to two alleged borrowers who acquired it for 42 million pesos, a price 300% above its original value.
To buy this apartment at an inflated price, the borrowers would have previously received money in three different ways: public resources, transfers from companies linked to the Sinaloa Cartel and deposits from a company involved in La Estafa Maestra.
On April 30, the Chamber of Deputies declared the governor’s immunity appropriate, but that same day, the Congress of Tamaulipas refused to approve the removal of immunity, with 26 votes in favor, three against and seven abstentions.
In response, García Cabeza de Vaca denounced that it was a political persecution for being an opposition governor.
At the end of May 2021, the FGR obtained an arrest warrant against the governor, but two weeks later, on June 8, a federal judge definitively suspended the arrest warrant for the crimes of money laundering and organized crime.
By November 2021, a federal judge decided to protect García Cabeza de Vaca to avoid arrest, until the Court resolves the controversy over his lack of immunity.
According to a report by the white elephant site, the head of the Eighth District Court considered that the arrest warrant granted by a federal judge to the FGR was illegal and violates fundamental rights.
Since May 2021, the Senate, the FGR and the local Congress have promoted constitutional controversies. It is in the hands of the SCJN the interpretation of Article 111 of the Constitution and the action of the local congresses with respect to the decision to remove the immunity of a public servant by the Chamber.
Elections in Tamaulps
Next Sunday, June 5, elections will be held to define governorships in six entities of the country, including Tamaulipas, a state where its leaders have been accused of various crimes such as illicit enrichment, money laundering or even being at the service of drug trafficking groups.
Polls place candidate Américo Villarreal (Morena, PT and PVEM) as the leader with a 25-point lead.
He is followed by the standard-bearer of the Va por Tamaulipas coalition (PAN, PRI, PRD), César Augusto Verástegui, who, according to the pollster Enkoll —in a measurement for The Universal—, has a preference of 34%.
The Morena candidate has repeatedly accused García Cabeza de Vaca of waging a “dirty war” against him. He also stated that “he is responsible for having made the environment toxic” in that entity.
The 2.7 million people registered in the electoral roll of Tamaulipas will decide the course of their state this Sunday. It is an entity that for decades has suffered from violence, insecurity and drug trafficking, and that despite the actions of its rulers, has not had concrete progress, according to the Study on violence in Tamaulipas: diagnosis and response actions.
“No strategy implemented in the last two decades could prevent the increase in crime rates in Tamaulipas and it seems that no action or financial resource is sufficient to contain the violence and stop perceiving the state as insecure; at least there seems not to be from the logic of public policy that has prevailed in recent decades: prevent crime with citizen participation, “says the text.
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