Supreme Court of Mexico located in Mexico City, Fernando - stock.adobe.com

Legislation reforming Mexico’s ‘amparo’– a mechanism for citizens to protect their civil rights against state abuse and miscarriages of justice – was passed by the country’s Congress in October. The move has prompted concerns that it will be more difficult to obtain an injunction for matters relating to public law, such as health or the environment.

A Mexican legal invention, the amparo has also been used in many other Latin American justice systems since the 19th century. Many recent victories for human and environmental rights in Mexico have been won through the prosecution and granting of an amparo, including the 2023 Supreme Court ruling that decriminalised abortion.

The new legislation amends and adds to the existing Amparo Law. Specifically, ‘the reform aims to modernise and streamline judicial proceedings – through measures such as mandatory use of digital platforms, shorter deadlines for issuing final rulings, tighter rules on recusals and the publication of judgments even when dissenting opinions are pending,’ explains Sara Gutiérrez, a partner with Mexican firm Creel, García-Cuéllar, Aiza y Enríquez.

He explains that ‘the requirements for the granting of suspensions – that is, interim relief preventing the execution of the challenged act – have been made more stringent.’ Curiel says these changes will probably ‘diminish the capacity of collective groups to initiate amparo proceedings, as they now face the burden of demonstrating a real and individualised harm both for the admissibility of the claim and for the granting of interim relief – thresholds that may prove difficult to satisfy in practice.’

Gutiérrez agrees and says the reform makes obtaining an injunction significantly more difficult in public law areas such as environmental protection, Indigenous rights and health, which ‘significantly reduces the potential for broader protective effects that could benefit third parties or affected communities.’

While the reform is aimed at creating greater efficiency in taxation and administrative law, Eduardo Pizarro Suarez, an officer of the IBA North American Regional Forum, says lawyers have some concerns in this respect. He highlights new requirements that could restrict the ability of taxpayers to challenge tax legislation they perceive as unjust.

Where a taxpayer has already made a challenge and received a ruling against them, the possibility of the legislation being suspended is now more restricted, explains Suarez, who’s also a partner at SMPS Legal. ‘This measure could open the door to potential abuses by the tax authorities, to the detriment of taxpayers’ procedural and substantive rights.’

Ernesto Palacios, who’s also a partner at Creel, García-Cuéllar, Aiza y Enríquez, agrees. ‘The reform increases bond requirements in tax cases and shifts from automatic to discretionary relief,’ he says. ‘These changes will restrict injunctions in challenges to the assessment and collection of taxes.’ There are concerns, therefore, ‘that the reform will reduce recourse for taxpayers against state error or overreach.’

Effectively, the amparo reform provides the administration of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, which inherited considerable debt, with a mechanism for tax collection, says Ramón Centeno, a sociology professor at Mexico’s University of Sonora. As ‘a reform for fiscal purposes’, the new law ‘deserves close attention, because it is taking place in a context where electoral democracy in this country has been eroding in recent years,’ he says. In this regard, Mexico’s trajectory is a reflection of a worldwide trend towards autocratisation, believes Centeno.

He says the new restrictions on legitimate interest resulting from the amparo reform are ‘worrying’ because of their potential to restrict collective claims, such as those of the thousands of people in ‘preventive prison’ in Mexico, who are awaiting trial. They ‘will most likely now not be able to use the amparo to obtain their freedom,’ he says. Centeno believes that although this is ‘a reform created for fiscal purposes, it may easily be used for authoritarian purposes.’

This year, ‘for the first time since the beginning of the century, autocracies outnumbered democracies,’ notes the University of Gothenburg’s V-Dem Institute. According to the Institute’s metrics, Mexico is located in a ‘grey zone’, says Centeno. ‘It is not clear whether Mexico still belongs to the club of electoral democracies or whether it has already crossed the line.’

In this respect, ‘one very important development in the last year is the collapse of the judiciary as one of the three branches of government,’ says Centeno, referring to the ‘Judicial Reform’ passed in Mexico in 2024. The reform means Mexican judges are now elected by popular vote. According to the Mexican government, the goal of the Judicial Reform is to target corruption and make the judiciary more responsive to the will of the people. However, critics have expressed concern about the implications of an elected judiciary for the rule of law.

President Sheinbaum has responded to concerns that Mexico is moving towards authoritarianism, telling a press conference that with the amparo reform, citizens continue to have a right of protection against acts of authority. Arturo Zaldívar, Mexico’s Coordinator of Policy and Government, added that under the reform ‘legitimate interest is neither limited nor redefined; rather, its essential elements are simply established in the law for greater clarity. There continues to be full protection of collective rights.’

Gutiérrez highlights that the amparo is supposed to be ‘the ultimate constitutional safeguard’ in the Mexican legal system. As such, ‘any changes […] must be carefully assessed for their impact on the rights of defence and effective judicial protection,’ she says.