International

López Obrador challenges Mexican Supreme Court ruling on infrastructure megaprojects

Photo: AP

May 19 |

Hours after Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that a government agreement declaring large infrastructure projects as “national security” works is unconstitutional, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador published a similar order in the Official Journal of the Federation in clear defiance of the high court’s ruling.

The Court made clear that the federal government cannot simply decree that tourist trains or other public works projects are matters of “national security” because that violates the public’s right to information about such infrastructure.

However, on Thursday afternoon, a similar agreement went into effect giving that label to several projects, among them the Mayan Train, a controversial mega-project in the Mexican southeast that the president wants to finish before the end of his term in 2024.

López Obrador has tried to speed it up by exempting it from normal permits and public reporting on the grounds that it is vital for the country’s security.

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The ruling is the latest in a series of setbacks for the president, who has sought to expand the discretionary powers of the executive.

At the moment it is unclear whether Thursday’s court ruling only affects the public’s right to access information on spending, costs and other data on such projects, or whether it also repeals the fast-track permitting procedure. The court is scheduled to discuss and vote Monday on the overreach and implications of the ruling.

Unlike the 2021 ruling, which did not mention specific projects by name but referred to infrastructure in general, Thursday’s ruling decreed that the Mayan Train and the economic corridor that will cross the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the narrowest part of the country, as well as three airports in that area of the southeast, were of national security.

López Obrador is upset with the highest court for dismissing some of his electoral reform initiatives, and has called for a change to make the Supreme Court an elected body. Currently, the president suggests the shortlists of potential justices, but the Senate chooses them.

In July, the government invoked national security powers to advance the Mayan Train construction project, a tourist railroad along Mexico’s Caribbean coast that threatens an area of caves where some of the oldest human remains in North America have been discovered.

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The government had paused the project in 2022 after activists won an injunction against the route because it opened a strip of jungle for the tracks without first submitting an environmental impact statement.

But the government invoked national security powers to resume construction. The measure also makes it easier for the government to withhold information on such projects.

Related Topics:López Obrador Mexico Suprema Corte de México

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On April 1, Sheinbaum responded to one such statement by declaring, “The president answers to only one authority, and that is the people of Mexico,” after Noem said on Fox News that she gave Sheinbaum “a list of things Trump would like to see” and that Mexico’s actions would determine whether Trump granted tariff relief.

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