Brief Analysis of the Reform to Articles 129 and 148 of the Amparo Law: A Regressive Measure in Terms of Suspension?

Abstract

On November 20, 1917, in amparo trial 31/917, the First District Judge in the State of Chiapas, based in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, received verbal notice that an escort was heading to the municipal cemetery to execute Humberto C. Ruiz and Sarain López. Immediately, the judge went to the place; before arriving, a shot was heard that ended Ruiz’s life. The amparo judge ordered the commander of the escort to suspend the execution of López, whose order he signed on the first piece of paper he found. Shortly after, the Chief of Military Operations in the State also appeared, whom the judge also required to suspend the act. With this, López’s execution was suspended.

The suspension of the challenged act is a legal institution accessory to the amparo trial, but, to a greater or lesser extent, fulfills a function of protecting human rights against acts of authority, since it allows stopping or temporarily interrupting the alleged violations by the complainant, while keeping the subject matter of the amparo alive so that, in the event that constitutional protection is granted, the complainant may be restored in the enjoyment of their fundamental rights.

Suspension first appeared in 1861 with the Regulatory Law of Articles 101 and 102 of the 1857 Constitution. This figure was later adopted in the Amparo Laws of 1869 and 1882, in the Federal Codes of Civil Procedure of 1897 and 1908, as well as in the Amparo Laws of 1919 and 1936. Currently, the Amparo Law is in force, Regulatory of Articles 103 and 107 of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, published in the Official Gazette of the Federation on April 2, 2013. This law establishes a comprehensive scheme on the suspension of the challenged act, which contemplates general and particular rules, modalities, aspects, procedures, and remedies against decisions in this matter.

For its part, the Federal Judiciary, especially the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation and the Collegiate Circuit Courts, through various judicial criteria —mainly those issued in the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Epochs of the Federal Judicial Weekly—, have forged an abundant jurisprudential line aimed at strengthening suspension and thus turning it into a powerful mechanism for the protection of the rights of the governed against acts of authority.

However, despite all this progress in terms of suspension of the challenged act, on June 14, 2024, the decree of reform to the Amparo Law was published in the Official Gazette of the Federation, by which the last paragraph of Article 129 was repealed and the third paragraph of Article 148 was added. This reform prima facie aimed to limit the powers of amparo judges to grant the suspension measure, as well as to prohibit suspension with general effects in the case of general norms.

In this context, this commentary makes a brief study on the recent legislative amendments to the Amparo Law, with the purpose of expressing a position —from the academic level— according to which the reform constitutes a setback in terms of suspension of the challenged act, contradicts the principles of progressivity, separation of powers, and judicial independence, and puts at risk the fundamental rights of individuals, especially those of a collective or diffuse nature.