Mexico - April 2024

In the last days of the legislature’s current ordinary session, Congress passed two controversial legal reforms. First, a reform to the Amparo Law will limit the effects of judgements in an amparo proceeding (judicial appeal for constitutional protection) to the claimant in the litigation. This will deprive others in similar situations to the claimant from the benefits of a ruling. Opposition members consider the reform to have weakened access to justice and see it as part of a strategy to keep federal courts from pausing the President’s priority infrastructure projects, which have been challenged as unconstitutional. Second, a reform to the Amnesty Law will empower the president to directly grant amnesty in certain cases, bypassing the procedure established in the law that ordinarily includes a judicial decision.  

Opposition in Congress has vowed to challenge these reforms before the Supreme Court.  

Sources: CNN, Chamber of Deputies, El Pais