Chamber of Deputies

Mexico City. The Assembly of the National Council of Indigenous and Afro-Mexican Peoples celebrated the fact that the Constitutional Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies unanimously approved the opinion with draft decree, which modifies the second constitutional article, and requested the 66th legislature to approve the indigenous and Afro reform in September.

On the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, the importance of the publication of the National Catalogue of Indigenous and Afro-Mexican Peoples and Communities published today in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF) was highlighted.

In this regard, Adelfo Regino Montes, director of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI), stated that the catalogue is the first instrument of the Mexican State that will serve to fully identify indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities as subjects of public law, and guarantee the exercise of their collective rights recognized in national and international legislation.

He added that the catalogue will be a reference for establishing direct dialogue, from government to government, in the consultation processes and in addressing community and regional needs. It will also allow the Government of Mexico to know exactly where it should provide cultural relevance to its public policies to guarantee pluriculturalism, legal pluralism and an intercultural approach.

The approval of the ruling has transcendental significance for indigenous peoples and communities in the full recognition of their fundamental rights. The ruling, approved in general with the unanimity of 37 votes, derives from the initiative presented on February 5 by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

In another commemoration of this date, more than two thousand members of various indigenous groups residing and not residing in Mexico City took part in the Megacalenda 2024. They walked in 25 groups to show some of their most significant dances and artistic performances and to remember that Mexico is a multicultural and multilingual nation.

Called by the Movement of Indigenous Peoples, Communities and Organizations (MPCOI), this year’s Megacalenda theme was For the revitalization of indigenous languages.
The indigenous groups convened by the MPCOI walked from the Angel of Independence to the capital’s Zócalo to show their dances and artistic expressions.

The Megacalenda was attended by people from the Huasteca, a contingent of Triquis with their chilolo and women in red huipiles, a formation of Mexicatiahui calpulli, another of regional catrinas, devils from Santiago Juxtlahuaca, Oaxaca, as well as the Chinelos from Morelos and the Tecuanes from Puebla.

Meanwhile, the National Assembly of Indigenous Peoples brought together almost two thousand municipal and community authorities from the 70 indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities. Its members called for unity between the Mexican indigenous movement and the black Afro-Mexican movement for a common cause: the constitutional recognition of their rights.

They said that the indigenous and Afro-Mexican reform “must unite and unify us, in word and deed, because in it lies our strength to achieve our true reconstruction as peoples, and with it advance in the refoundation of the Republic, and for Mexico to truly be the home of all; we will have to see our rights recognized in the Constitution, as an act of elementary social justice.”

They added that the reform initiative creates the basis for advancing the transformation of the current legal and political structures of the Mexican State and, once and for all, recognizing in the Political Constitution the cultural and historical greatness of all the peoples that comprise it; in essence, recognizing that Mexico is made up of a diversity of peoples and cultures, our indigenous and Afro-Mexican peoples, leaving behind the old idea of ​​a monoethnic and monocultural State.

They also supported the initiative of the President of the Republic to reform the Judiciary, and pointed out that, during the 200 years of Mexico’s independent life, indigenous peoples have been the most affected by the elitist and formalistic system, which is alien to the reality of the native communities and their demands for justice.

They therefore demanded the incorporation of the principles of pluriculturalism, interculturalism and legal pluralism in the formation and functioning of the Judiciary, and the recognition of indigenous justice systems.

Mexico City. The Constitutional Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies approved this Friday two more rulings of the so-called “Plan C” of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, through which it is established that no public servant may have a higher salary than that of the head of the Executive, and which allows the State to “retake” the management of the country’s railroads, to promote the passenger transportation service by rail.

During its session today – interrupted for a few minutes due to the erroneous activation of the seismic alert – the aforementioned legislative body discussed the republican austerity initiative presented by López Obrador, which proposed raising to constitutional rank that the monthly salary received by the president, of 136,700 pesos per month, be the salary cap for the rest of the public servants.

In the text of the ruling – through which six articles of the Magna Carta were modified – it was specifically mentioned that the remuneration of “the Ministers of the Supreme Court, the Circuit Magistrates, the District Judges, the Magistrates of the Judicial Disciplinary Tribunal, the Electoral Magistrates and other personnel of the Judicial Branch of the Federation, may not be greater than that established for the President of the Republic.”

Another point of the initiative established that “no type of unnecessary goods or services, retirement pensions, special retirement regimes, individual or collective separation, special savings accounts, medical expense insurance or private life insurance or others that are not provided for in a general provision, collective contract or general working conditions may be acquired or contracted with public resources.”

During the debate in the committee, legislators from all parties stated that they would vote in favor of the proposal, with the exception of the PAN, which through the voice of deputy Jorge Triana pointed out that the total expenses associated with the work of the President of the Republic actually amount to “almost half a million pesos per month.”

He also pointed out that the López Obrador government “fell far from complying with austerity” because –he said- it exceeded four times what it had committed to spend on current expenses and hiring new personnel.

Four reservations were presented to the ruling, of which only the one made by Deputy Ismael Brito (Morena) was accepted, who requested to specify that the comprehensive remuneration of the President of the Republic “includes all payments in cash and in kind and may not exceed the equivalent of 73.04 times the annual value of the Measurement and Update Unit,” and not 73 times, as the text originally stated.

After a discussion lasting more than two hours, the initiative was approved unanimously with 36 votes in favour.

Boost to passenger trains

Today’s session also approved the ruling that authorizes the federal Executive to “retake” control of the country’s railways, with the aim of “granting assignments to public companies or concessions to private parties, to use the railways and provide the service of passenger transportation by rail.”

In one of the initiative’s transitory provisions, it was also mentioned that “individuals who have concessions to provide freight rail transport services may obtain concessions to provide passenger transport services,” with the clarification that the latter will have preference.

The text of the ruling emphasized that, although “rail transport was crucial to Mexico’s development in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,” in 1995 the regime of exclusive state participation in railways was replaced in order to allow private participation through concessions.

“Since its privatization until 2017, the railways only increased by 23 kilometers, for a total length of 26,914 kilometers,” which relegated the train to a very marginal form of passenger transport, he lamented.

As has occurred with other presidential reform proposals, practically all parties announced that they would vote in favor, except for the National Action Party. Deputy Héctor Saúl Téllez indicated that the PAN would not support the initiative because it would open the door to the Armed Forces taking over a state-owned company that administers passenger trains, which would imply the “militarization of a civil service.”

He also argued that the Maya Train and other infrastructure projects of the current government have been built at a high price, and that this type of initiative “creates serious uncertainty for investment” and “puts at risk the concessions already granted to private parties.”

Despite opposition criticism, Morena accepted a reservation to specify that the ruling would allow the State to “retake” control over the railways. The initiative was approved by 30 votes in favor, 8 against and one abstention.

At the end of the session, the president of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, Juan Ramiro Robledo (Morena), said that since the discussion of each opinion of the “Plan C” –six in total, between Thursday and Friday—has taken two hours on average, he will propose to the coordinators of the parliamentary groups that the analysis of the next five initiatives be divided into two sessions.

In this way, two or three of the next resolutions would be debated on Friday, August 9, and the remaining ones in the following session, in order to “work more quickly.” The possible new schedule, already with these adjustments, would be announced next Monday.