Mexico’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ratified the presence of the Army on the country’s streets for public security, as part of the fight against organized crime ordered by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
The Plenary of the Court, by a majority of eight votes, validated the constitutionality of López Obrador’s August order, which ordered soldiers and Marines out of their barracks to confront organized crime.
Thus, it has established that the head of state has correctly used his power established in article 5 of the constitutional reform decree, despite the fact that the president of the chamber, Arturo Zaldívar, has rejected that with this resolution the body authorizes the militarization of public security tasks.
«The fact that this Supreme Court validates the participation of the armed forces in security tasks, until such time as other institutions of a civilian nature, such as the National Guard, conclude their integration (…), in no way means that this court is authorizing the militarization of Public Security», he explained, as reported by the newspaper ‘Excelsior’.
The agreement also mentions that the Armed Forces will be governed by the strict observance and respect for Human Rights, in compliance with the Constitution or the national law on the use of force.
This measure, approved by the Chamber of Deputies, allows that during 10 years from the approval of the public security law –in force since 2019– the Mexican National Guard will be able to use the military in public security tasks in an «extraordinary, regulated, supervised, subordinated and complementary» manner, at the request of the country’s president.
López Obrador proposed in August that Mexican soldiers and Marines remain on the streets beyond 2024 to support the Mexican Police in public security tasks, after he pushed through a reform in 2019 that had a maximum term of 5 years. Previously, López Obrador has objected that the «emergency that the country is experiencing in public security» makes such an extension necessary.
