The Mexican opposition appeals the electricity reform for "attacking" the environment and the free market

The opposition parties have presented this Thursday an appeal of unconstitutionality against the electricity reform promoted by the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which has not yet entered into force when it was paralyzed last month in the courts.

The new law, which disrupts the previous model and benefits a State company, the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), in the face of private initiative, received harsh criticism for its environmental and economic impact and a judge suspended it indefinitely after admit the petitions for protection of two individuals.

This suspension renders the reform ineffective during the trial, but the opposition seeks to go further and seeks that the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation declares the decree that modifies the Electricity Industry Law unconstitutional.

Legislators from PAN, PRI, PRD, Movimiento Ciudadano and two from the Green Party use four arguments in their appeal.

In the first place, they point out, the reform "goes against human rights by limiting people's access to rights to a healthy environment, as well as the Paris Agreement and international instruments on clean energy and energy transition of which Mexico is part ”.

This is precisely one of the most controversial points of the legislation promoted by López Obrador and approved by Congress.

The new system in practice prevents the most efficient plants, which generally coincide with the renewable plants of private companies, from also being the first to upload electricity to the grid.

This happens because the CFE will have the priority of the supply.

The president defends this change, ensuring that the electricity bill will thus be cheaper by returning hegemony to a parastatal company.

The second argument of the unconstitutionality action is that the review "violates the basic principles of legality, legal security and the non-retroactivity of the law," by harming individuals who already have concessions.

In addition, it continues, "it is against the free market in a framework of full economic competition, as well as international treaties" to which Mexico adheres.

The productive sectors and analysts have pointed out that the reform seriously harms national and foreign investment and is also a bad signal for companies in search of new markets.

The Ministry of Economy of the Mexican Government estimates that in the last decade foreign investment "for the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity" contributed more than 17,500 million dollars.

And, for example, the United States Chamber of Commerce warned that López Obrador's initiative violates the trade agreement between the two countries and Canada, the T-MEC.

Finally, the appeal maintains that the reform "undermines the autonomy of the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE) and the National Center for Energy Control (Cenace)" and "runs counter to the spirit of what is established in the 2013 constitutional reform on the matter of energy and electricity ”.

“For all the above, the legislators of various political forces announced their commitment to human rights;

with a healthy environment;

the principle of legality;

free competition;

and the generation of renewable and clean energy ”, maintain the senators of these four formations.

López Obrador, who has made this law an instrument to vindicate the principle of energy sovereignty and has promoted a similar one that affects the oil sector, has advanced that he is willing to promote a constitutional reform so that his plan can be released.

The president, moreover, not only rejected the stoppage issued by an administrative court, but also requested the investigation of the judge who made that decision, Juan Pablo Gómez Fierro, and openly challenged the Judiciary.

In mid-March, he sent a letter to the President of the Supreme Court, Antonio Zaldívar, requesting that he open a folder on action in this case.

The Minister of the Court replied, informing him that his complaint had been referred to the corresponding area, but at the same time requesting "full respect for the autonomy and independence of the jurisdictional function."

Thus began a pulse that the Mexican president promised to repeat "in all cases" that he deems appropriate and that he intended to demonstrate the links between justice and previous administrations.

Now, the ball has been on the court of the Supreme Court.

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