Parties may not waive remaining resources: SCJN

The plenary session of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) declared the partial invalidity of two articles of the General Law of Political Parties and of the Federal Law of Budget and Fiscal Responsibility, which establish that the parties can waive part of its ordinary public financing in case of catastrophes in national territory due to any natural disaster or phenomenon; the ruling resolved that they will not be able to waive any remaining money.

Since the qualified vote equivalent to eight votes was not reached, the normative portion of article 23 of the aforementioned party law, enacted on March 27, was not invalidated, as a minority of senators demanded through the unconstitutionality action February, which orders:

“Political parties may partially renounce and, where appropriate, reinstate, at any time, their financing for permanent ordinary activities, provided that the fulfillment of said activities is not affected and that public resources prevail over those of private origin in their financing, in the case of catastrophes suffered in national territory due to any disaster or phenomenon contemplated in the General Law of Civil Protection or any other that puts society in serious danger.

Modify project

At the proposal of Minister Javier Laynez, Minister Loretta Ortiz modified the original project under her charge to eliminate from the cited article any reference to the term “remainder”, as well as the word “preferably” from article 19 ter of the budget law, a proposal that was approved by qualified majority of votes.

The aforementioned article of the budget law, from which the “or remnants” and “preferably” portions were eliminated, establishes:

“Income, for exploitation, that correspond to the availability or remnants of resources that the political parties report to the Treasury of the Federation in terms of article 23, numeral 1, subsection d), fourth paragraph, of the General Law of Political Parties, may be assigned by the Ministry (of Finance and Public Credit) preferably to address the effects of any disaster or phenomenon contemplated in the General Law of Civil Protection or any other that puts society in serious danger.

Minister Ortiz clarified that the second resolution of the modified project specifies:

“The invalidity of article 23, numeral 1, subsection d, third paragraph (of the law of parties) in its normative portion is declared: ‘The reimbursement of resources corresponding to financing for permanent ordinary activities of political parties will also be applicable in the case of remnants of the year with respect to this type of financing’”.

And that the fifth paragraph of the same rule invalidated the normative portions “or the remainder of the fiscal year” and the one that provides: “The reimbursement of the remainder of the fiscal year may be carried out until it is presented to the Technical Unit, the annual report provided for in article 78, numeral 1, subparagraph b), of this Law”.

Zaldívar instructed the secretary of agreements to “for greater security” of the ruling “present us for the next session a black and white wording of the operative points and, we can vote on them; in the understanding that the operative points are only going to reflect what we have already voted on”.

rolando.ramos@eleconomista.mx