Mexican constitutionalism after presidencialismo

International Journal of Constitutional Law

Volumn 4, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 411-437

  Zamora, Stephen ^a   Cossío, José Ramón ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON   (United States)

^b INSTITUTO TECNOLÓGICO AUTÓNOMO DE MÉXICO   (Mexico)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33745961337     PISSN: 14742640     EISSN: 14742659     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/icon/mol011     Document Type: Article

References (115)

1. On the transformation of the electoral process in Mexico, see generally Stephen Zamora, José Ramón Cossío, Leonel Pereznieto, José Roldan & David Lopez, Mexican Law 162-178 (Oxford Univ. Press, 2004) [hereinafter Mexican Law]. On Mexican judicial reforms,
2. see id. at 186-228, 257-286.
3. The actual number of amendments depends on how one counts, since on many occasions, a single legislative act would result in the amendment of numerous articles of the Constitution. See R. Mejía, The Amendment Process in the Mexican Constitution (Monograph; Instituto Tecnólogico Autónomo de México [ITAM], September 2003).
4. For a discussion of the forces that weakened the PRI's hegemony, see Jorge A. Schiavon, Bicameralismo, configuración institucional y partidaria en America Latina: Un modelo de puntos y jugadores con veto para explicar la provisión de políticas públícas [Bicameralism, Institutional Structure and the Party System in Latin America: A points-and-players model to explain the provisions of public policy], 44 Foro Internacional 126 (2004).
5. Juan Molinar Horcasitas & Mony de Swaan Addati, Movimientos Graduales y Pendulares: La Transición Democrática y la Nueva Correlación de Fuerzas [Movements Gradual and Pendular: The Democratic Transition and the New Correlation of Forces], in Relaciones Entre Gobierno Y Congreso: Memoria Del VII Congreso Iberamericano De Derecho Constitucional 362, 370 (Cecilia Mora-Donatto ed., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México 2002).
6. See generally José Ramón Cossío), Cambio Social Y Cambio Jurídico [Social Change And Judicial Change] (Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México 2000).
7. See generally José Ramón Cossío, La Teoría Constitucional De La Suprema Corte De Justicia [Constitutional Theory of the Supreme Court of Justice], ch. 2 (Fontamara 2002).
8. See generally Eliseo Mendoza Berrueto, El Presidencialismo Mexicano: Una Tradición Ante La Reforma Del Estado [Mexican Presidentialism: A Tradition Before the Reform of the State] (2d ed., El Colegio de la Frontera Norte 1998)
9. Eliseo Mendoza Berrueto, El Presidencialismo Mexicano: Génesis De Un Sistema Imperfecto [Mexican Presidentialism: Genesis of an Imperfect System] (El Colegio de la Frontera Norte 1996). The most widely cited study by traditional constitutional law scholars in Mexico is Jorge Carpizo, El Presidencialismo Mexicano [Mexican Presidentialism] (Siglo XXI 1978).
10. See also Mexican Law, Supra note 1, at 144-162.
11. Vargas Llosa is quoted as having stated, in a roundtable discussion in Mexico City, that "[t]he perfect dictatorship is not communism, nor is it the Soviet Union, nor is it Fidel Castro: It is Mexico." The quote is taken from Jorge Chabat, Mexico's Foreign Policy in 1990: Electoral Sovereignty and Integration with the United States, 33 J. Inter-am. Stud. & World Aff. 12 (1991).
12. Norman Dorsen et al., Comparative Constitutionalism 220 (West 2003).
13. Cf. Keith Rosenn, Federalism in the Americas in Comparative Perspective, 26 U. Miami Inter-Am. L. Rev. 1, 5-6 (1994).
14. Bruce Ackerman, The New Separation of Powers, 113 Harv. L. Rev. 633, 639 (2000) (citing Juan Linz).
15. Id.
16. Despite party discipline in the PRI, the Mexican president did, on numerous occasions, use his veto power to veto legislation passed by Congress in order to maintain party discipline. See Luis Carlos Ugalde, Relaciones Ejecutivo-Legislativo en México: El Caso del Veto Presidencial [Executive-Legislative Relations in Mexico: The Case of the Presidential Veto], in Relaciones Entre Gobierno Y Congreso, supra note 4, at 645, 646.
17. Mexican Law, supra note 1, at 151-152, and authorities cited therein.
18. Benito Nacif, Congress Proposes and the President Disposes: The New Relationship between the Executive and Legislative Branches in Mexico, in Mexican Governance: From Single-Party Rule to Divided Government 1, 7 (Armand B. Peschard-Sverdrup & Sara R. Rioff eds., CSIS 2005).
19. Id. at 10.
20. See, e.g., Scott Mainwaring & Matthew Soberg Shugart, Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America (Cambridge Univ. Press 2003).
21. See also Jeff Weldon, The Political Sources of Presidencialismo in Mexico, in Mexican Governance, supra note 15
22. and Mexico under Fox (Luis Rubio & Susan Kaufman Purcell eds., Lynne Rienner Publishers 2004).
23. Nacif, supra note 15, at 2.
24. Id. at 11.
25. Const. art. 72, §C.
26. Nacif, supra note 15, at 9.
27. The following table shows the distribution of seats among the three major parties in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate from 2000-2003: 58th CONGRESS (2000-2003) NUMBER OF SEATS HELD BY PARTY (PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL CHAMBER) Pan Pri Prd Chamber of Deputies 207(41.1) 211 (42) 52(10.4) Senate 60(46.9) 46(40) 16(12.5) Elections for the Mexican Chamber of Deputies are held every three years. Elections for the Senate are held every six years, and senators' six-year terms (nonrenewable) coincide with the election and terms of the Mexican President.
28. On party discipline and bloc voting by party, see Luisa Béjar Algazi, Representación Parlamentaria y Disciplina Partidista: El Caso de México [Parliamentary Representation and Party Discipline: The Case of Mexico], in El Congreso Mexicano Después De La Alternancia 197, 207-221 (Rosa Mirón Lince & Luisa Béjar Algazi eds., AMEP 2003), and studies cited therein.
29. See also Nacif, supra note 15, at 16.
30. Nacif, supra note 15, at 10. One of these bills, the Federal Law of Transparency and Access to Governmental Public Information - Mexico's first "freedom of information" law - may turn out to be the most important legacy of the Fox sexenio. For information on the transparency law
31. see Mexican Law, supra note 1, at 312-313. Information on the law is also available on the web site of the agency created to administer the law.
32. See www.ifai.org.mx.
33. "Ley Federal de Transparencia y Acceso a la Información Gubernamental," D.O., June 11, 2002.
34. On these reforms, see Mexican Law, supra note 1, at 237-238. The constitutional reforms on indigenous rights have proved to have little practical effect to date.
35. 59th CONGRESS (2003-2006) NUMBER OF SEATS HELD BY PARTY (PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL CHAMBER) Pan Pri Prd Chamber of Deputies 153(30.6) 224(44.8) 52(19.4) Senate 47(36.7) 58(45.3) 16(12.5)
36. See www.diputados.gob.mx.
37. Data compiled by Benito Nacif, CIDE (www.cide.mx).
38. "Ley del Servicio Profesional de Carrera de la Administración Pública Federal," D.O., Apr. 10, 2003.
39. For information on the ASF, see www.asf.gob.mx.
40. On the principle of nonreelection, see Mexican Law, supra note 1, at 140-142, 174.
41. Const. arts. 51, 56, 59.
42. See, e.g., Víctor Alacrón Olguín and Claudia Jiménez González, Carreras Legislativas en el Senado de la República: 1994-2006 [Legislative Races in the Senate of the Republic: 1994-2006], in El Congreso Mexicano Después De La Alternancia, supra note 23, at 121.
43. Mexican Law, supra note 1, at 188.
44. See Jodi Finkel, Judicial Reform as Insurance Policy: Mexico in the 1990s, 46 Lat. Am. Pol. & Soc. 87 (2005). Finkel surmises that judicial reform may have presented potential short-term costs for the PRI, since it qualified the party's control of the judiciary. At the same time, the Supreme Court's enhanced powers of review would allow the party to use the courts to shield the party against future political threats posed if opposition parties came to power. Id. at 88. "While the PRI might not have been able to prevent decisions and actions taken against its interests by opposition-controlled political offices, at least it could challenge these actions via an autonomous and empowered judiciary."
45. Id. at 108.
46. Controversia Constitucional 109/2004.
47. See generally Mexican Law, supra note 1, at 274-286.
48. Justice Cossío, coauthor of this essay, voted against this final ruling of the Court. As explained in his dissenting opinion, the matter should simply have been returned to the Cámara de Diputados for resolution. If the Cámara voted by a two-thirds majority to reject President Fox's contentions, the budget should be published with the president's observations excised. If a two-thirds vote is not obtained, the budget should be published with the president's observations included. See Controversia Constitucional 109/2004 (Cossío, dissenting), and Recurso de reclamación 371/2004 (Cossío, dissenting).
49. Recurso de Apelación 1/2004-PS (June 15, 2005), and Recurso de Apelación 8/2004-PS (Oct. 13, 2004).
50. During the PRI's hegemony, former presidents remained far removed from politics, and, in exchange, there would be no thought to investigating corruption or other matters that occurred during the former president's administration.
51. C.P.D.F. art. 149, D.O., Aug. 14, 1931, amended by D.O., Jan. 20, 1967.
52. For a comparative discussion of the powers of the U.S. president in budgetary matters, see generally Stephen Zamora, El Poder Presidencial y la Economía de los Estado Unidos [Presidential Power and the U.S. Economy], in 2 Derecho Constitucional Comparado México - Estados Unidos 841, 857-862 (James Smith ed., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México 1990).
53. Amparo en revisión 2639/96, 5 SJF 5 (9a época 1998).
54. Amparo en revisión 1335/98, 10 SJF 8 (9a época 1999).
55. Controversia constitucional 35/2000, 20 SJF 1122 (9a época 2004).
56. Miguel González Compeán & Peter Bauer, Jurisdicción Y Democracia: Los Nuevos Rumbos del Poder Judicial En México [Jurisdiction And Democracy: The New Courses of Judicial Power in Mexico] (Cal y Arena 2002).
57. Id. at 371-374, commenting on Controversia Constitucional 31/97, 10 SJF 708 (9a época 1999).
58. González Compeán & Bauer, supra note 46, at 373-374.
59. Mark Miller, A Comparison of the Judicial Role in the United States and in Canada, 22 Suffolk Transnat'l L. Rev. 1, 5 (1998). For critical studies of judicial activism in Canada,
60. see generally F. L. Morton & Rainer Knopff, The Charter Revolution and the Court Party (2nd ed., Broadview Press 2000)
61. Christopher Manfredi, Judicial Power and the Charter (2nd ed., Oxford Univ. Press 2001)
62. Robert Martin, The Most Dangerous Branch: How the Supreme Court of Canada has Undermined Our Law and Our Democracy (Oxford Univ. Press 2003)
63. and Kent Roach, The Supreme Court on Trial (Irwin Law 2003).
64. Id. at 6-7. "Because of this long-held majoritarian view in Canada, judges, lawyers, and social scientists there have traditionally not thought of the courts as having policy-making powers."
65. Id. at 7.
66. See generally The Global Expansion of Judicial Power (C. Neal Tate & Torbjorn Vallinder eds., NYU Press 1997).
67. See also Ran Hirschl, Towards Juristocracy: The Origins and Consequences of the New Constitutionalism (Harvard Univ. Press 2004)
68. and Ran Hirschl, Constitutional Rights Jurisprudence in Canada and the United States: Substantive Convergence or Enduring Divergence?, in Constitutional Politics in Canada and the United States 63-88 (Stephen Newman ed., SUNY Press 2004).
69. González Compeán & Bauer, supra note 46, at 394-395.
70. See Rosenn, supra note 10.
71. See Mexican Law, supra note 1, at 1-18.
72. See Federalism and Centrism, in id. at 102-131.
73. Compare the language of the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
74. Article 73 is one of the most frequently amended provisions of the Mexican Constitution, more so than any other article of the constitution.
75. These broad allocations of legislative power are similar in some respects to those assigned to the federal government in Canada, where the Constitution assigns exclusive legislative powers to both the federal and provincial governments but includes a number of subjects (criminal law, marriage, and divorce) that are reserved to the states in Mexico and the United States. See the comparative discussion in Rosenn, supra note 10, at 11-13.
76. Jorge A. Schiavon, The central-local division of power in the Americas and the renewed Mexican federalism: Old institutions, new political realities, 4 Int'l J. Con. L. (I·CON) 392 (2006).
77. See Mexican Law, supra note 1, at 32-33.
78. See Manuel González Oropeza, cited in id. at 116.
79. Rosenn, supra note 10, at 4.
80. Id. at 8-9.
81. The first statewide election lost by the PRI in modern times occurred in 1989, when Ernesto Ruffo Appel, the PAN candidate, was elected governor of the State of Baja California. Opposition candidates also won gubernatorial elections in Chihuahua (1992); Jalisco and Guanajuato (1995); Nuevo León and Querétaro (1997); Zacatecas, Tlaxcala, and Aguascalientes (1998); and Baja California Sur and Nayarit (1999).
82. We have drawn from the discussion of Zedillo's "new federalism" in Arturo Alvarado, El viejo y el nuevo federalismo: Del presidencialismo unipartidista al federalismo partidista [The old and new federalism: From one-party presidentialism to multi-party federalism], in El Nuevo Federalismo en América del Norte 505-560 (Paz Consuelo Márquez-Padilla & Julián Castro Rea eds., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México 2000)
83. and from Peter Ward, Nuevo federalismo, relaciones intragubernamentalesy cogobierno en México, in id. at 335-384.
84. See Peter Ward, supra note 65, at 337.
85. For basic information on CONAGO, see www.conago.org.mx.
86. At the outset, President Fox's interior minister, Santiago Creel, prohibited PAN-elected governors from participating in CONAGO, but the PAN leadership relented, and governors from all three political parties have participated in CONAGO. See Alberto Diaz-Cayeros, Mexican Federalism and the Institutionalization of the Politics of Governors, at 24, note 20, available at www.stanford.edu/~albertod/ politicsofgovernors.pdf (paper presented at the conference entitled "What Kind of Democracy Has Mexico? The Evolution of Presidentialism and Federalism," March 4-5, 2005, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California at San Diego.
87. Mexican Law, supra note 1, at 126.
88. D.O., Dec. 27, 1978, as amended. The current version of the law is available at www.juridicas.unam.mx/ijure/fed.
89. In addition to IVA and income taxes, the federal government receives a large percentage of its federal budget from oil revenues generated by PEMEX, the government-owned oil company. For example, during the six months of 2005, PEMEX generated approximately 35 billion dollars to the federal budget, amounting to over 35 percent of all federal revenues. Hacienda: Aportó Pemex al fisco $334,501.7 millones en seis meses [Pemex contributed $334,501.7 million to the state treasury in six months], La Jornada, Aug. 3, 2005, at 24. Despite calls for reform from the states, the federal government has never included oil revenues in its revenue-sharing program with the states.
90. See, e.g., Const. art. 73, §XXIX (federal taxation of certain activities, and revenue sharing with states).
91. See Const. art. 117, §st IV, V, VI and VII
92. See the discussion in Mexican Law, supra note 1, at 126.
93. Under article 10 of the Ley de Coordinación Fiscal, supra note 70, the states must enter into agreements with the federal treasury secretary to participate in revenue sharing.
94. Municipalities may collect property taxes, but the funds generated by property taxes represent a small portion of public revenues.
95. Alberto Diaz-Cayeros, Dependencia fiscal y estrategias de coalición en el federalism mexicano [Fiscal Dependance and Coalition Strategies in Mexican Federalism], in Política y Gobierno, Vol. XI, No. 2, 231, 232 (CIDE 2004). It would appear that the figure of 95 percent for total revenues would include "taxes" imposed on PEMEX, the state-owned oil monopoly, which helps to support federal government spending. As noted above, PEMEX revenues do not enter into revenue sharing.
96. Const. art. 117, §VIII.
97. During the nineteenth century, a number of states of the United States borrowed extensively on European capital markets to fund public works; in numerous instances the states defaulted on foreign loans in times of recession. See John Wallis et al., Sovereign Debt and Repudiation: The Emerging-Market Debt Crisis in the U.S. States, 1839-1843, National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 10753 (September 2004), available at www.nber.org/papers/w10753 (describing foreign borrowing, and eventual default, by eight U.S. states and the Territory of Florida).
98. Rosenn, supra note 10, at 38.
99. Id.
100. See also Fernando Renoir Baca Rivera, El federalismo mexicano al inicio del siglo XXI. Problemas, avances y perspectives, 13 Provincia 37, 52 (2005) (stating that the federal government retains 80 percent of revenues subject to sharing under the LCF, with the states claiming 16 percent and municipal governments 4 percent).
101. (Figures include expenditures for education, which are covered primarily by transfers from the federal government.) Source: State and provincial web sites (www.state.ar.us, www.state.co.us, www.bcbudget.gov.bc.ca, and www.nuevoleon.gob.mx). The comparatively large state budget for British Columbia reflects provincial funding of public health care, while moderate levels of public health care in the United States and Mexico are federally funded.
102. The complaints were twofold: Impoverishment of the states due to the small share allocated to the states from tax collections, and the fact that the executive branch, which holds considerable power over the allocations to individual states, could reward states "friendly" to presidential policies and punish those that were unfriendly. Keith Rosenn notes that similar complaints have been registered in Canada, where the federal government has used its spending power in a "carrot and stick" approach that calls for provinces to enact legislation considered appropriate to federal policies.
103. Rosenn, supra note 10, at 36.
104. See the discussion in Diaz-cayeros, supra note 68, at 27. As explained by Diaz-Cayeros, the "decision body" of the CNH included six governors, three mayors, and three leaders of state legislatures. The federal government negotiators included the president, his coordinator for public policy, and the secretaries of Finance, Interior, and Social Development. The federal Congress also had two seats on this board, one from the Senate and the other from the Cámara de Diputados.
105. Id. at 28.
106. Declaratoria a la Nación y Acuerdos de los Trabajos de la Primera Convención Nacional Hacendaria, available on the CONAGO web site at www.conago.org.mx.
107. Diaz-Cayeros, supra note 68, at 34.
108. Id. at 32.
109. "Ley de Amparo Reglamentaria de los Artículos 103 y 107 de la Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos," D.O., Jan. 10, 1936, as amended.
110. On amparo generally, see Mexican Law, supra note 1, at 258-274
111. Amparo directo in the Mexican federal courts contrasts dramatically with the "Erie Doctrine" adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court in Erie Railroad v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938), which held that, except in matters governed by the U.S. Constitution or federal laws, federal courts must always apply the applicable state law as interpreted by state courts. As a result of Erie, U.S. federal courts must yield to state court opinions interpreting state law and would not presume to overrule those interpretations.
112. Several years ago, the Mexican Supreme Court commissioned a group of experts to study the amparo law and propose an amended version of the law that would simplify amparo procedures; the group was also to refine amparo jurisdiction in order to concentrate more on the protection of fundamental constitutional rights and human rights, including rights emanating from treaties to which Mexico is a party. The commission produced a draft report, which has been placed before a Senate committee, but there appears to be little likelihood of adoption of the recommendations for reform in the near future.
113. See the discussion in Mexican Law, supra note 1, at 260-261.
114. See text accompanying note 13 supra.
115. The Mexican Supreme Court receives approximately 3,000 cases for review each year and maintains a docket of about 5,000 cases. By contrast, the United States Supreme Court receives a similar number of cases each year, but only decides 80 to 100 of them, the remainder being dismissed on grounds of certiorari. The Mexican Supreme Court does not labor under a certiorari system, and all cases that are not sent to the lower courts must be decided by the Supreme Court.