Centro Prodh calls on the Senate not to validate reforms to the National Guard

The Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center called on the Senate of the Republic to does not validate the reforms to the National Guardwhich were approved this Saturday by the Chamber of Deputies.

“The reforms to the #NationalGuard approved by the majority in @Mx_Diputados contravene Article 21 of the Constitution and deepen the militarization“, pointed out the Prodh Center in a tweet.

This says the Constitutional Article 21 About the National Guard:

Public security institutions, including the National Guard, shall be civil, disciplined, and professional. The Public Ministry and the police institutions of the three orders of government must coordinate with each other to fulfill the purposes of public security and will form the National Public Security System.

This Saturday morning, after a marathon session of more than 12 hours, the plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies approved in general and in particular, the initiative of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that gives the Secretary of National Defense full control of the National Guard.

According to the document presented by Deputy Ignacio Mier Velazco, on behalf of the Morena, Labor Party and Green Party caucuses, as a coalition, the purpose of the initiative is to strengthen the institutional consolidation of the National Guard as permanent, professional and disciplined police force attached to the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection, under the operational and administrative control of Sedena.

The package of legislative amendments was presented on August 31 in the Chamber of Deputies.

In an analysis by Santiago Aguirre, director of the Prodh Center, published in links, It proposes six points with which it shows that the project proposed by the president does not manage to do what it intends without going over the Constitution.

• The statement of reasons is a complete expression of the vision of the current government on security and on the role of the Armed Forces in our context, questionable from various angles.
• The civilian chain of command is broken and, therefore, the National Guard becomes entirely military.
• The intervention of the Sedena in the National Guard exceeds the support for its institutional strengthening and assumes that it assumes full control of it.
• The powers of the National Guard are expanded with respect to the investigation of crimes and the performance of intelligence work, although the assignment of these is contested before the SCJN.
• The scope of military jurisdiction is extended.
• More resources are provided to Sedena, without external controls.