Court annuls transfer from National Guard to Army

The Supreme Court of Justice of Mexico invalidated on Tuesday the transfer to the Ministry of Defense of functions of the National Guard that Congress had approved last year, a decision that represents a setback for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who was the promoter of the initiative.

With the vote in favor of eight of the 11 ministers, the highest court declared it unconstitutional for the National Guard to remain under the command of the Army. Under López Obrador, the National Guard had been assuming more and more functions in the civil sphere such as customs, airports and even surveillance in the Mexico City subway.

The ministers estimated that the decree promoted by López Obrador violates article 21 of the Magna Carta and represents a “fraud of the constitution.”

This was stated by the Minister of the Court Juan Luis González Alcántara in his draft sentence, recognizing that the administrative, budgetary, organic, functional and command transfer was “unconstitutional” from the National Guard to the Army.

During the debate, Minister Margarita Ríos Farjat also indicated that the presidential decree called into question the civil nature and attachment of the National Guard to the Ministry of Public Security and implied a “risk” of legal certainty due to the fact that there was a body that It responded to two secretariats, one civilian and the other military.

With this decision, the management of the National Guard must return to the Ministry of Public and Citizen Security as it had been applied since the body was established in 2019 after the elimination of the federal police.

The transfer was approved in September by the Congress, controlled by the ruling party, as part of a legislative reform promoted by López Obrador amid questions from humanitarian organizations and activists who considered it an advance in the militarization process in Mexico.

Earlier, the president spoke out against the possible return of the National Guard to civilian hands and said that if the legislative reform were reversed, the body could end up being corrupt.

López Obrador maintained that keeping the National Guard under the control of the Defense Secretariat would allow for more professionalism and honesty among the members of the body.

Of the more than 100,000 members of the National Guard, more than 80% come from the Army and the Navy.

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