Imagine this extreme and absurd but possible case.
Suppose that the Chamber of Deputies cuts 100 percent of the budget requested by the National Electoral Institute (INE) . As a reaction to this, consider that the INE indicates that it is not able to organize the elections that correspond to this year. And then comes the claim of the Executive Power that indicates that the constitutional rights of citizens are being violated due to the Institute’s refusal to organize the elections. And, therefore, the electoral advisers who made that determination are criminally sued. Obviously it is an extreme case that did not occur, but it serves as an illustration of a fundamental constitutional problem that has been present in the tangled debate of the revocation of the mandate and its organization. The Constitution assigns the autonomous bodies and the Powers of the Union specific responsibilities . The Executive sends an Expenditure Budget proposal to the Chamber of Deputies in which the resources corresponding to federal spending are distributed and integrates the budgets sent by autonomous bodies such as the INE, or the Judicial Power and the Legislative Power. The Chamber of Deputies has the power to modify these budgets , approve them and send them to the Executive Power for their promulgation . If the latter were in disagreement with the Congress, it could omit the publication of the Budget and subject it to Constitutional Controversy, as happened once during the Fox administration. In the case of autonomous bodies, it is also possible that, if they consider that the assignments defined by the Chamber are incompatible with the fulfillment of their constitutional obligations, they take the case to the Court or as was the case last week, to the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judicial Power (TEPJF). The Court’s ruling has two equally relevant angles. On the one hand, limits the margin of authority of the General Council of the INE , noting that it does not have the authority to suspend a process, such as the consultation for revocation, which is a constitutional right of the citizens. But at the same time, the sentence converts the Ministry of Finance into a related subject , noting that, since the consultation process has defined dates, the INE has to require the resources that the Executive requires through the Ministry of Finance and it must respond in a timely manner to the request in a detailed and well-founded manner. The TEPJF establishes that the obligation to provide the means to carry out the consultation is not exclusively the INE but the Mexican State , and that is the reason why it is linked to the Executive. The substance of the issue that will eventually have to be debated in the Court is precisely that consideration. The autonomous bodies are not entities external to the State . They are part of the Mexican State and, therefore, it is jointly responsible for the fulfillment of its constitutional obligations. We do not know if the consultation for the revocation of the mandate will have to be carried out in legal and constitutional terms since it has not yet been determined that there is the number of valid signatures required in at least 17 entities of the Republic. But, the discussion that must take place in the Court when the merits of the matter are discussed goes far beyond this case. It is about the co-responsibility of the Executive in the fulfillment of the obligations of the constitutionally autonomous bodies. The indication that additional resources would be given to the INE if it undertakes an austerity program is a subjective criterion of the federal government to which compliance with the Court’s judgment cannot be subjected. So far, opinions have been expressed, but there is still no formal response from the Ministry of Finance, which will surely be presented in the following days and weeks, as soon as the INE delivers its requirements again. In any case, it must be the TEPJF that defines if the INE complied with the sentence issued and if the Treasury is obliged to deliver the resources requested. In other words, it is not a “concession” from the Treasury, but rather the execution of an instruction from the Judicial Power. There is a lot of political background in this matter, as we have commented since December, so it will be necessary to return to the point in future comments.
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