Federico Reyes Heroles
Supremacy is the right word for their desire to be the supreme voice. This is how they conceive democracy.
“The state of being supreme,” says the Encyclopedia Britannica, ”hierarchical superiority.” From supremacism: “… the belief that a certain group of people is superior to all others.” Supremacy is the word chosen by legislators in power to amputate citizen and minority rights: “constitutional supremacy”. It could be the hallmark of Mexico’s authoritarian drift.
Laws -and, therefore, constitutions- arise from multiple factors. The principles that should govern life in a democracy are the rights of citizens in all orders before their equals and before authority, the division of powers, and the legal and procedural logic that should govern them—the popular will within these canons. So far, nothing is new, but today’s world imposes new modalities on all orders. Our Constitution, by the will of the Mexicans themselves, adopted in 2011 -as its own law- the international conventions. They incorporate new requirements—for example, the principle of irreversible progressivity of citizens’ rights. There is no going back in the rights acquired by the population. Pure Supremacism.
Also, when in doubt, the pro persona principle obliges judges to apply the norm that most benefits a certain individual. Fortunately for us, in recent decades, but especially since the 2011 reform that proposes a new “culture” of human rights in our country, this modernizing and universal function should be the axis. But now it turns out that -with a legislative majority product of violating the rights of minorities to which they are obliged to comply- not content with that, they want to submit any means of challenge -amparo, constitutional controversy, or action of unconstitutionality- to the interpretation they make of a constitutional amendment. Supremacy is the correct word for their desire to be the supreme voice. This is how they conceive democracy, only our interpretation is valid, is and will be the correct one. Listening, negotiating?
Few proposals for constitutional reform have received an assortment of adverse comments from specialists, observers, and even mockery abroad. How did they arrive at such a proposal? A very well-known Spanish jurist asked me in astonishment. He added that they know about the barrage of challenges that will come from abroad. They don’t listen, was the only thing I could answer. For Mexico, it is suicidal, a setback of decades, he continued. They argue sovereignty, I repeated. He told me it would be that of the 16th century, designed to bury feudalism and enter into nationalism. Imagine if the members of the European Union started with that. The “Supreme Power” no longer exists, and it closed.
One of the most attractive aspects of the different processes of globalization has been precisely the necessary adaptation of local rights to increasingly universal figures: from the ius gentium, born in Roman law and which gave life to incipient rights to individuals crossing territories, to contemporary international conventions. The Napoleonic Code was a true conceptual revolution, including its excesses that provoked exacerbated nationalism. What is incredible is that Mexico, which began its commercial and political opening four decades ago, is today governed by a political class that is impoverished -in its quality alone- and profoundly ignorant.
A country that has had a Nobel Prize winner for its contributions to international law, several Justices in the International Court of Justice, notable jurists in the Inter-American Court, and a rich internal range, several of whom have reached the Supreme Court, is today walking at full speed towards a constitutional crisis woven with legal fallacies and a good dose of publicity poison.
None of the recent crises in our country is equivalent to the one in gestation. The warning of a constitutional crisis is not to be taken lightly, as it could have severe and far-reaching consequences.
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