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AMLO to present new constitutional reform after SCJN rules transfer of National Guard unconstitutional

Mexico City, Mexico — A Mexico City court has ruled the transfer of National Guard to the the Secretary of National Defense as unconstitutional. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) resolved that transferring operational and administrative control of the National Guard (GN) to the Secretary of National Defense (Sedena) is unconstitutional.

The ruling was made in a vote of eight against and three in favor of.

Mexico’s highest constitutional court approved the invalidity of normative portions of an article of the Organic Law of the Federal Public Administration, seven of the National Guard Law, two of the Organic Law of the Mexican Army and Air Force and one of the Law of Promotions and Rewards of the Mexican Army and Air Force, all in terms of GN and public safety.

“The administrative, budgetary, organic, functional and command transfer that the challenged Decree, through the articles analyzed in this section, carries out is unconstitutional.

“This is opposed to the text of Article 21 (of the Constitution) which, as a guarantee of the civilian nature of the National Guard, expressly says that it must be incorporated into the branch of public security, which will formulate not only the National Public Security Strategy, but rather its programs, policies and actions,” quotes the draft sentence approved by a majority of eight votes.

“Public security is and will continue to be a priority of our government to guarantee the peace and tranquility of our people, something that we have been achieving as shown by the National Survey of Urban Public Security,” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said after learning of the SCJN ruling.

In a morning press conference, he said the National Guard will continue to receive guidance, professional training and support from Sedena.

“The Constitution establishes that the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Navy can help in tasks of public security and we need to unite wills, efforts, resources to protect Mexicans. That is fundamental and it is a priority,” he said the day after the ruling.

AMLO announced that, with the aim of maintaining the proper functioning and consolidation of the National Guard, the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, Rosa Icela Rodríguez Velázquez, will tour all the facilities and National Guard barracks to inform the 130,000 members that they will maintain their salaries, benefits and promotions under the same conditions as members of the Armed Forces.

He reported that on September 1, 2024, before the end of his term and when the new legislature is already in office, he will present a new constitutional reform initiative to insist that the National Guard depend on Sedena.

He hopes, he said, that they approve it before the last day of his term as President of Mexico.

“That I can leave this constitutional reform that is very important because it is a shield so that what has happened will not happen, that public security was in the hands of crime,” he said.