What's at risk with Mexico's attempt to limit injunctions?

Morena, the party of Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, looks likely to succeed in approving a bill to weaken the law on amparos, or injunctions, used by NGOs and private companies to slow down projects and get protection from regulatory changes.

Judges can grant an amparo, a mechanism used to protect individuals from unlawful arrest, to halt a public work, block a decree or even a law. 

Weakening the amparo law would have two direct consequences, Rogelio Rodríguez Garduño, a law professor at Universidad Autónoma de México (UNAM), told BNamericas. 

First, judges won’t be able to halt public projects and, second, they would lose the power to grant suspensions “when it comes to general norms, suspensions that have the effect of nullifying the entire norm, not only indicating who gets protected but also ordering that the norm is not valid under the national scope,” he said. 

Last Wednesday, the amparo reform was approved by the senate’s justice and legislative committees with 19 votes in favor and 13 against. The bill can now be brought to the floor and, since it is not a constitutional reform, Morena and its allies have the votes to approve it.

Amparos have caused problems for the López Obrador administration, which had to contend with suspensions of Maya train sections and other megaprojects and even reforms such as the 2021 amendments to the electric power industry law (LIE) that were declared unconstitutional by the supreme court in February. 

With Morena controlling both chambers, approval seems imminent, but the law could be taken to the supreme court, which will have to decide on its constitutionality within 30 days after it passes, Rodríguez said. 

Dilemma

Rodríguez added that the reform would allow district judges to exceed their jurisdiction by suspending federal projects and regulations, in addition to laws approved by the legislative branch.

“We are facing a legal dilemma because one excess seems to introduce another excess,” he said, adding that collegiate courts can review district judges' suspensions and, so far, they have followed good criteria.  

“Mexico has a system of precedents and jurisprudence. So, who calibrates the judges when they exceed the criteria of jurisprudence that the constitution itself establishes? Do we require a reform law? No, we require mature jurisprudence,” Rodríguez said.