Mexico’s Supreme Court docket annuls the regulation granting the defence ministry operational and administrative management of the Nationwide Guard.
Mexico’s high courtroom has restricted the military’s participation in public safety duties, blocking a contentious transfer by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to place a civilian pressure beneath navy management.
The Nationwide Guard plan, permitted by the governing party-controlled Congress final September, alarmed Lopez Obrador’s opponents and human rights campaigners who mentioned it handed an excessive amount of energy to the armed forces.
By eight votes to 3, the Supreme Court docket annulled on Tuesday the legislative reform granting the defence ministry operational and administrative management of the Nationwide Guard, concluding it was unconstitutional.
Earlier than coming to energy in 2018, Lopez Obrador had promised to ship the navy again to the barracks.
However beneath his presidency, the armed forces have stored their position in tackling drug cartel-related violence and even gained extra duty, together with management of ports and customs and main infrastructure initiatives.
Lopez Obrador created the Nationwide Guard in 2019 with a civilian command to exchange federal police accused of corruption and human rights violations.
He has since argued the navy is much less more likely to be infiltrated by organised crime than different branches of the safety forces.
The United Nations Workplace of the Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights final 12 months described the Nationwide Guard reform as a “setback to public safety grounded in human rights”.
350,000 killed
Nada al-Nashif, then appearing UN excessive commissioner for human rights, mentioned on the time the adjustments “successfully depart Mexico with out a federal civilian police pressure, additional cementing the already distinguished position of the armed forces in public safety in Mexico”.
The navy’s elevated position had led to extra allegations of human rights violations by regulation enforcement and the armed forces, and no sustainable discount in crime, she mentioned.
Greater than 350,000 individuals have been killed in a spiral of bloodshed because the authorities of then-President Felipe Calderon controversially deployed the military to battle drug cartels in 2006.