Revocation of Mandate: TEPJF ordered AMLO, once again, to refrain from promoting the consultation

The Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary (TEPJF) ordered the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), to refrain from commenting or referring to the consultation process by the Revocation of Mandate, to be held on April 10, 2022.

In a statement, the Electoral Tribunal announced that the plenary session also modified the agreement issued by the Technical Unit for Electoral Litigation (UTCE) of the National Electoral Institute (INE) so that the General Coordination of Social Communication and the Federal Government's spokesperson exclusively remove the content of publications containing expressions relating to the Revocation process, regarding the morning conference on February 28.

This, derived from the complaints submitted by the parties of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and National Action (PAN) to the INE Complaints and Complaints Commission, and therefore the institution issued agreements ordering the federal president to refrain from commenting on the consultation, on the conferences on 2, 12 and 13 February.

Subsequently, the PAN presented to the Commission an incident of non-compliance, as President López Obrador again held demonstrations on the process on the mornings of February 21 and 28. In response to the complaint, they ordered to delete the conference on the 28th from social networks.

However, the Court explained that dissatisfied with the resolutions, the Chief Executive and the Coordinator of Social Communication promoted means of challenge alleging violation of their guarantee of hearing and presumption of innocence, “and that the UTCE exceeded its powers by ordering the removal of the entire content of the morning conference on February 28, ” he said.

Therefore, during a public session by videoconference, at the proposal of Judge Felipe Alfredo Fuentes Barrera, the plenary session of the Superior Chamber considered that, with regard to the morning conference on February 28, the electoral authority exceeded itself by ordering the removal of all content.

Meanwhile, on the Presidency's challenge, the TEPJF ruled that: “The guarantee of hearing was not violated, since sanctioning procedures in electoral matters do not require a prior hearing; nor is the principle of presumption of innocence violated, because monitoring compliance with precautionary measures does not involve assess the alleged conduct or make a statement on its wrongfulness”.

On March 14, the National Electoral Institute, through its Complaints Commission, asked the Presidency of the Republic to download the audios, images and stenographic versions of the morning conference of the morning conference on 7 March. in March, which presumed achievements in the fertilizer program, as well as removing the posts made on Facebook on March 5 and 6 in which it disseminates its government actions.

This was done in response to a complaint by the PAN and the PRD against the director of Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), Octavio Romero, and the head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (Sader), Víctor Manuel Villalobos, who participated in the conference to advance the program.

“Hopefully, the government will not continue to damage the revocation process because they can damage the level of citizen participation, ” Minister Ciro Murayama said during the session.

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