Breathe
By Julieta del Río
Yesterday was a historic day in the defense of two fundamental human rights for Mexicans: the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) decided to grant the suspension of Article 33 of the Federal Transparency Law so that the four commissioners that currently make up the Plenary of the National Institute of Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data (INAI) can meet and vote on the 8,236 appeals accumulated to date.
Of the five justices that make up the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court, there were three votes in favor of the suspension (Laynez Potisek, Pérez Dayán and Aguilar Morales), one against (Esquivel Mossa) and one abstention (Ortiz Ahlf). As of this moment, the approved project is not available, so we do not know the scope of the suspension granted; however, we will be watching for the Court's notification.
This does not mean that the extraordinary situation INAI is going through is over. What the Maximum Court resolved yesterday derives from the appeal 229/2023-CA that we filed on May 9 before the first denial of the suspension we requested. We have always promoted that nothing and no one can be above the Constitution, and that includes secondary norms; the right to know and the protection of data in our country must be guaranteed at all times.
Likewise, we are still waiting for the SCJN to resolve the Constitutional Controversy (280/2023) that we filed on March 27 in which we request that the Senate of the Republic comply with its constitutional mandate to appoint the missing commissioners of INAI. In a democratic state, our rights cannot be held hostage by anyone.
With the decision of the Second Chamber of the SCJN, the Plenary of INAI will be able to meet again in ordinary sessions, since, during the almost five months of partial paralysis, we met on nine occasions due to court orders in response to amparos from citizens who, backed by the law, found a way to have their rights respected.
The commissioners of INAI are getting ready, together with our teams of speakers, to meet next Wednesday, August 30, in what will undoubtedly be the sign of a light in a tortuous path that we have followed, but I am sure that history will show that we did the right thing by not giving up and defending with conviction our Institute, an autonomous body that was created by social struggles and that serves society.
The work of seven commissioners will continue to be done by four of us, but that does not weigh on us; we swore an oath to comply with the Constitution and we owe it to it. We also take advantage of this situation to promote a reengineering of our Institute; as a collegiate body we must analyze the areas of opportunity and make our work even more efficient.
We trust that, when the Constitutional Controversy we filed is resolved, the Upper House will comply with the instruction of the highest court in the country. For the time being, INAI shows that it has not and will not stop.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of Opinion 51.
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