Global Exchange is asking for an amparo* against an I.N.M (National Institute of Immigration) ruling.

La Jornada
August 24, 1999
by David Aponte

The American non-governmental agency Global Exchange has put forth a legal tool before the Mexican tribunals in order to ask for a ruling on the constitutionality of Mexico's State Department rules and regulations pertaining to foreign human rights observers travelling to Mexico and principally to the state of Chiapas.

The first ruling on the administrative matter opened with the application for an amparo against an internal National Institute of Immigration (I.N.M.) directive [circular] issued in October of 1998, and set a constitutional hearing for September 23, 1999 to determine how to proceed with the San Francisco group's petition.

In a writ presented to the Mexican court, the director of the Global Exchange's Mexico program, Ted Lewis, argued that the directive INM/001/98, through which the Mexican government is creating new rules pertaining to the admittance of foreign human rights observers, violates numerous articles and guaranties of the Mexican Constitution and the American Convention on Human Rights.

Neither the document in question [INM/001/98] nor the issue of international human rights observers in Mexico are considered in the General Law of the Population. As such, argues the American [Lewis], they do not form part of Mexican law. .

"Internal directive INM/001/98 is unconstitutional, and contrary to articles 14 and 16 (of the Constitution)," alleged Lewis. "Furthermore, it creates a migratory status for visitors, which should be based on legislation passed by Congress, wherein the cited immigration directive is to be incorporated into the General Law of the PopulationŠ"

Lewis, who traveled to Mexico for five days in May as an international, human rights observer and who was denied a renewable visa, declared that the National Supreme Court of Justice [Mexico's highest judicial body] has already determined that directives such as the one issued by the I.N.M. are not equivalent to legislation. Instead, Lewis stated, they are rules designed to regulate the internal activities of a government agency.

"In this sense, the unconstitutionality of the rule INM/001/98 is also based in that, as well as imposing illegal obligations on those who must abide it, it violates numerous decisions in the Political Constitution of Mexico by infringing on the inalienable, inviolable and constitutional rights of the land."

In his writ, the American described how the rules of the Secretary of the Government conflict with the content of the General Law of the Population. Additionally, Lewis added, they violate the constitutional guarantee of free transit and the American Convention on Human Rights, principally in its pronouncements of the rights of association, movement, and residency.

Lewis petitioned numerous lawyers, as well as the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Center for Human Rights, for legal representation in the judgement of his injunction and in his battle against the rules of the National Institute of Immigration.

*Note: Mexico was the first state on the world to institute a legal protection against the violation of the civil rights declared by the country's founders. This legal recourse is known as an amparo. The amparo is a constitutional review system for all types of acts of autrority. It is similar to a "writ of relief" and its use in Mexican law is similar to that of the writ of Habeas Corpus in many other countries. It is applicable, and functions as a restraining prder to protect the rights of individuals against actions of the state.