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REPORT
Nº 14/93
CASE 10.956
MEXICO
October 7, 1993 BACKGROUND
1.
FILING AND PROCESSING WITH THE COMMISSION
On May 6, 1991, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
received a communication wherein Mr. Luis Felipe Bravo Mena of the
Partido Acción Nacional (National Action Party - PAN) denounced
numerous irregularities in the elections held in the State of Mexico
between March and November 1990, which violated the political rights
of the citizens of the State in general and of the Municipality of
Naucalpan de Juárez in particular.
This petition was forwarded to the Government of Mexico on
October 17, 1991.
On February 14, 1992, the Government of Mexico replied to the
Commission stating, in brief, that the IACHR did not have competence
to take cognizance of the complaint, requesting that the Commission
find it inadmissible on the grounds that internal remedies had not
been exhausted and pointing out that the facts in the case did not
constitute violations of the Inter-American Convention on Human
Rights. The pertinent
part of this reply were forwarded to the petitioner on March 2, 1992.
On April 27, 1992, after having been given an extension for
purposes of presenting observations, the petitioner sent an analysis
of the Government's reply and his assessment of its content; he
basically reiterated the arguments put forward when the petition was
first presented.
The petitioner's observations were forwarded to the Government
on June 5, 1992, and the latter's reply was received on August 4,
1992. There, it presented its final observations and confirmed the
position that it had taken in its original note.
On March 12, 1993, during its 83rd session, the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights carefully examined this case and decided to
adopt Report No. 7/93 on a provisional basis.
Said report was sent to the Government of Mexico, which was
given 90 days in which to respond.
In that report, in application of the provisions of Article 41.b
of the American Convention and in consideration of the provisions of
Articles 1.1 and 2 thereof, the Commission stated that:
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reminds the
Government of Mexico of its duty to adopt the internal measures, in
accordance with its Constitution and laws, to ensure full exercise of
political rights, particularly in relation to the effectiveness and
suitability of the remedies established under domestic law, so that the
citizens of that country may have simple, prompt and effective recourse,
free of needless formalities that weaken their efficacy, to protect all
the rights recognized in the American Convention on Human Rights,
without distinction.
Concerning the configuration of the electoral bodies, the
Commission must underscore how important it is for representative
democracies that the general conditions under which elections are held
guarantee that all groups that participate in the election process do so
on equal terms".
The Commission also asked the Government of Mexico to "adopt
the necessary measures" and offered to cooperate with the
Government in any measures necessary to accomplish the objectives of
full observance of political rights in that country.
On June 3, 1993, the Government of Mexico sent its observations
on the Report adopted by the Commission and asked that the IACHR:
-
Order that the case be closed, since the grounds for the petition
no longer obtain.
-
Declare the petition inadmissible based on the evidence cited and
the information subsequently reported; or
-
Consider the matter settled, in light of the measures taken
within the framework of domestic law and referred to at (...) of this
document.
In its reply, the Government of Mexico commented on the contents
of the Commission's report, stating that "the Commission has a
number of observations that can be easily acted upon; in fact, Mexico
had introduced them into its laws even before the confidential report in
question was approved (...). Other suggestions will require gradual
measures that will be viable to the extent that the legal system is
applied (...). But other observations go further than the petition and
overstep the legal framework of the system agreed upon in San José
(...)."
The Commission will begin by addressing the analysis of the case
itself and, before making its final observations, will consider the
arguments brought by the Government of Mexico in its brief.
2.
THE ISSUES RAISED
2.1 Background
to the communications:
In the State of Mexico, a State Party constituted as a Federal
State of the United Mexican States, elections were held in 1990 to elect
new members to the local congress and officials of the 121 local
governments in the state.
The election process began in March and ended the first week in
December, when the State Election Commission declared the results of the
elections held on November 11, 1990, final.
2.2 Summary
of the arguments of the petitioner (communications of May 6, 1991, and
April 27, 1992):
The petitioner describes a variety of irregularities that
occurred during the election days and that, in his judgment, create a
reasonable doubt as to the validity, authenticity and legality of the
voting; his chief arguments are that there was no clear distinction
between election officials, government officials and members of the
Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party
- PRI); official election-related documents, such as ballots and the
records of poll openings, ballot counting, and poll closings were
distributed and delivered in vehicles bearing PRI campaign advertising;
public funds were used for electioneering purposes, building public
works and providing services with political strings attached.
The petitioner stated, in particular, that there were serious
anomalies in the elections held on November 11, 1990:
80% of the individuals selected to serve as poll officials were
deliberately replaced; at the last minute, over 20% of the polls were
relocated away from their officially designated sites; the guarantees
that enable voters to cast their votes freely and in private were
lacking; the proper furnishings for voting were lacking; the political
parties' poll watchers were prevented from overseeing and monitoring
activities there by being required to stand five or six meters away; in
"Operation Carousel", hundreds of repeat voters were mobilized
and transported from one polling place to another, via collective means
of transportation, to vote as many times as possible, and were supplied
with the voter credentials needed to do so; finally, ballot boxes were
stolen once the polls closed.
2.3 Arguments
made by the Government of Mexico (notes of February 14, and August 4,
1992):
For its part, the Government of Mexico replied at length to each
point alleged by the petitioner, using three main arguments: the Commission's alleged lack of competence; the failure to
exhaust internal remedies, and the assertion that the facts denounced
were not violations of the American Convention on Human Rights.
The Government of Mexico described the structure of the electoral
bodies, how their members are appointed and what their functions are; it
also cited from all existing laws on the subject.
The submissions by the Government of Mexico and the petitioner's
allegations will be examined in the Commission's observations on the
case. OBSERVATIONS
1.
FORMAL REQUIREMENTS AS TO ADMISSIBILITY
The petition satisfies the formal requirements for admissibility
under the American Convention and the Commission's Regulations because
as the case is not pending in another international proceeding for
settlement and is not a duplication of any other case the Commission has
already considered. Moreover, that phase of the proceedings wherein the positions
of the government and the petitioner are presented has now been
completed.
2.
COMPETENCE OF THE COMMISSION
The analysis must be founded upon the relevant articles of the
American Convention on Human Rights, as they are the legal framework by
which the Commission examines the cases submitted to it.
Therefore, it must begin by determining what issues the case
raises, then the scope of political rights according to the Convention
and the Commission's practice; it must also examine the issue of the
Commission's competence
based on the authority that the Convention invests in it.
2.1 The
election process: preliminaries
leading up to the elections and the actual elections in the instant case
In the instant case, 10,956, the following issues were raised by
the petitioner and refuted by the Government of Mexico:
The petitioner claimed that official election-related documents,
such as ballots and records of poll openings, ballot counts and poll
closings were transported and delivered in vehicles bearing PRI campaign
advertising.
The Government replied by stating that these were unsubstantiated
claims, as no reliable evidence was offered to show, firstly, that the
facts described actually occurred, and secondly, where and when the
alleged violations occurred, the identity of the individuals involved,
and other relevant circumstances. It
said that the election materials were distributed in a fleet of vehicles
that the Municipal Election Commission had assigned for that purpose.
The petitioner also stated that public funds were used to buy
votes, building works and providing services with political strings
attached. He added that the
Federal Government has a program called the National Solidarity Program
(PRONASOL) whose purpose was to deal with extreme poverty in rural and
urban areas. Attempts were made to use that program for the PRI's
political electioneering.
As for this complaint, the Mexican Government denied that there
were any political strings being attached to the Government's public
works projects. It pointed
out that the public works projects were part of pre-established plans
and described, specifically, the nature and functions of PRONASOL.
The Government concluded by stating that "political parties,
therefore, have nothing to do with the program; the direct participants
are indigenous peoples, peasant communities and urban low-income
neighborhoods (...)". The
Government's final observation on this point was that since PRONASOL's
establishment, investments have been made in every municipality in the
Mexican Republic governed by the opposition, and they have received
their fair share of the program's resources.
In a communication dated April 27, 1992, the petitioner sent
press clippings as proof of his allegations in this connection.
The Government rejected them as purely circumstantial evidence.
The petitioner also alleged the deliberate replacement of 80% of
those designated by the Naucalpan Election Commission to serve as
polling place officials after their names had been drawn in a procedure
in which the Commission's members, including the political parties'
representatives, took part; these designees, however, were not notified
of the civic duty they were called upon to discharge and therefore did
not appear on election day; thus, the ballots were received by persons
other than those officially authorized to do so.
The Government points out that the petitioner provides no
evidence to substantiate his claim, and does not provide any information
or clues as to the identity of the individuals replaced or of the polls
where those changes were made. It
added that had any such substitution been made, it should have been
recorded in the corresponding poll report, and there was no such record.
The Government cited the laws that applied to this situation and
gave an account of the meetings that the Municipal Election Commission
held on the subject of polling places and the officials designated to
monitor them. Finally, it stated that if the individuals designated failed
to appear, the law provided that they were to be replaced immediately,
though any such substitution was to appear in the record and there was
no record of any substitution.
The petitioner also reported that at the last minute, over 20% of
the polling places were relocated, away from their officially designated
sites, which caused confusion among the voters.
The Government stated that this claim was unsubstantiated,
"since it is untrue that polling places were relocated, much less
the percentage of polling places that the petitioner incorrectly
cites".
In response to the petitioner's complaints as presented thus far,
in general the Government of Mexico stated that "the petitioner did
not provide sufficient evidence to substantiate his claim." It added that in the report prepared by the Municipal
Election Commission on the occasion of the permanent session of November
11, 1990, the Commission member representing the National Action Party
said "absolutely nothing concerning these alleged
irregularities." It
concluded by stating that it found it strange that the PAN
representative "should expressly concur by signing the report
attesting to the fact that the polling places were installed and their
officials appointed routinely and in accordance with the law."
In response to the Government's assertion that the PAN delegate's
signing of the report indicate concurrence, the petitioner pointed out
that "the signature did not signify concurrence, but rather his
presence at the session. The
disagreement was such that within the legal time periods the appropriate
challenges were filed."
The petitioner alleged that the right to cast one's vote freely
and in private was not guaranteed, that the proper furnishings to enable
voters to vote in private were lacking, which made it easy for
PRI-Government agents to exert pressure on citizens, especially in poor
areas, where voters were told that they would get PRONASOL support for
public works and services and food stamps for milk and tortillas if they
voted the PRI ticket.
The Government's reply recounted the laws in effect concerning
the State Registry of Voters and its responsibilities in that regard. It
asserted that it acted in accordance with those laws.
As for the polling places' furnishings and ballot boxes, the
Government pointed out that they had been approved by the State Election
Commission and emphasized the fact that the National Action Party
participated in that process. From
there it deduced that the petitioner's claims were false.
According to the petition, the oversight and monitoring
activities of the political parties' poll watchers were obstructed
because they were required to stand five or six meters away, which
prevented them from performing their functions.
They were held back by individuals claiming to be Commission
Aides.
In its notes to the Commission, the Government stated that these
were "subjective opinions that, being utterly unsubstantiated and
unfounded, offered nothing to refute, because no evidence is offered as
to the identity of the persons, election aides, polling places, etc.;
the unsubstantiated charges per se, therefore, cannot be said to
involve a violation of human rights."
It added that the representatives of the political parties were
always free to file an objection with the poll officials, who were
obliged to document any such objections.
The petitioner complained that there were brigades of repeat
voters in something called "Operation Carousel", where
hundreds of people were transported from one polling place to another,
via collective means of transportation, so that they could vote as many
times as possible; they were supplied with the voter credentials needed
to cast their vote.
To this point, the Government stated that "this is not
possible" because indelible ink is put on the right thumb of
citizens when they cast their vote.
Finally, the petitioner complained that ballot boxes were stolen
when the polls closed; at 6:00 p.m. at countless polling places,
officials were not allowed to count the ballots or to discharge their
duty of delivering the voting packets to the Municipal Election
Commission of Naucalpan.
The Government stated that this assertion was completely refuted
by the minutes of the meeting held by the Municipal Election Commission
on November 15, 1990, which showed that all election packets were
delivered on time, to the place previously designated by the election
officials. It further stated that the Public Prosecutor's Office had
received no reports of stolen ballot boxes.
2.2 HOW
FAR DOES THE IACHR'S JURISDICTION GO; WHAT ARE POLITICAL RIGHTS?
Under
the American Convention, the political rights are those recognized in
articles 1, 23 and 28 thereof.
The Commission's practice.
Article 23 of the American Convention on Human Rights recognizes
the following political rights:[1]
1.
Every citizen shall enjoy the following rights and opportunities:
a.
to take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or
through freely chosen representatives;
b.
to vote and to be elected in genuine periodic elections, which
shall be by universal and equal suffrage and by secret ballot that
guarantees the free expression of the will of the voters; and
c.
to have access, under general conditions of equality, to the
public service of his country.
2.
The law may regulate the exercise of the rights and opportunities
referred to in the preceding paragraph only on the basis of age,
nationality, residence, language, education, civil and mental capacity,
or sentencing by a competent court in criminal proceedings.
The Government of Mexico contends that the facts denounced do not
constitute violations of the American Convention on Human Rights, and
cites Article 23 of the Convention, which it believes the petitioner has
misinterpreted. It states
that "while this article enumerates the three basic prerogatives
that citizens enjoy where participation in government is concerned
-namely, the right to take part in the conduct of public affairs, the
right to vote and be elected in free and periodic elections, and the
right to have access to public service-, it does not prescribe a
prototype or model for either the election process, how the election is
to be set up or who the election authorities are to be.
This is the sovereign right of each country to decide."
The Government added that "neither the Constitution nor the
Election Law of the State of Mexico infringes those rights, as it will
now be shown that the creation and structure of the election authorities
and tribunals are neither subject to any political party's authority nor
biased in its favor." The
Government's analysis of the facts alleged by the petitioner begins with
this statement and ends by stating that "a careful review of
everything this Government has reported above is unmistakable proof that
the election process and the elections themselves were conducted in
accordance with the law."
In light of the provisions of Articles 1 and 2 of the American
Convention on Human Rights[2]
which concern the obligations to investigate, safeguard and take
domestic measures to ensure full exercise of human rights and in order
to avoid any narrow interpretations of the Commission's competence, it
will cite the finding of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights when
examining these articles:
The obligation to ensure the free and full exercise of human
rights is not fulfilled by the existence of a legal system designed to
make it possible to comply with this obligation -- it also requires the
government to conduct itself so as to effectively ensure the free and
full exercise of human rights.[3]
When the scope of Article 23 was examined in the past,[4]
the Commission explained, in detail, that if Article 23 was to be fully
respected elections had to be authentic, universal, periodic, and by
secret ballot or some other means that enabled voters to express their
will freely. Laws alone
will not suffice; the
attitude must be one there encourages proper implementation, and must be
consistent with generally recognized principles that govern a
representative democracy. The
IACHR is being asked to examine whether citizens who participated in a
political process did so as equals, whether those political processes
guaranteed the free and authentic will of the electorate and, therefore,
whether the facts alleged constitute violations of political rights.
The Commission is competent to examine the instant case because
it concerns the right to participate in government (Article 23) and the
right to judicial protection (Article 25) protected under the American
Convention on Human Rights, and the generic obligations contained in
articles 1 and 2. Mexico is
a State Party to the Convention, having ratified it on April 3, 1982.
The Government of Mexico argues that while the Commission is
competent to defend the political rights protected under Article 23 of
the Convention, no article of the Convention gives it the competence to
rule on the States Parties' internal political processes, as the latter
are conducted in the exercise of the people's right to
self-determination and their sovereign right to decide for the political
system that best suits them; declaring elections valid or invalid is the
exclusive competence of the internal organs lawfully established under a
given State's constitutional system.
In its arguments alleging that the Commission does not have
jurisdiction, the Government acknowledges that the Commission may
receive petitions or communications on alleged human rights violations
which concern that Government; at the same time, however, it contends
that the American Convention does not give the Commission the authority
to decide whether elections are valid or to rule on the conduct of the
authorities where elections are concerned.
As for the Government's allegations concerning sovereignty and
nonintervention in a State's internal affairs as arguments for denying
or limiting the Commission's competence, it might be well to recall what
the Commission has said in this regard on previous occasions.[5]
Indeed, the premise must be that the principle of nonintervention
is a rule of conduct governing the actions of States or groups of
States, as stipulated in the Charter of the Organization (Article 18);
this principle has been linked to the peoples' right to
self-determination and independence, "with absolute respect for
human rights and fundamental freedoms."[6]
The most fundamental level at which these basic principles have
taken on the force of law is Article 16 of the Charter of the
Organization, where the counterpart of a State's right to develop itself
freely is its obligation to respect the rights of the individual.
In the Inter-American system, it is the American Convention on
Human Rights that recognizes these rights and contains provisions on the
mechanisms and organs that are their means of protection.
The Commission -one of those organs of protection-
is, according to its governing instruments:
... empowered to examine and evaluate the degree to which the
internal legislation of the State party guarantees or protects the
rights stipulated in the Convention and their adequate exercise and,
obviously, among these, political rights.
The IACHR is also empowered to verify, with respect to these
rights, if the holding of periodic, authentic elections, with universal,
equal, and secret suffrage takes place, within the framework of the
necessary guarantees so that the results represent the popular will,
including the possibility that the voters could, if necessary,
effectively appeal against an electoral process that they consider
fraudulent, defective, and irregular or that ignores the `right to have
access, under general conditions of equality, to the public service of
his country'.[7]
As noted earlier, in Article 23 the American Convention speaks of
"genuine periodic elections, which shall be by universal and equal
suffrage and by secret ballot that guarantees the free expression of the
will of the voters." The
exercise of these rights is so essential if societies are to function
normally that Article 27 of the Convention prohibits their suspension,
regardless of the circumstance.
The close relationship between representative democracy as a form
of government and the exercise of the political rights so defined, also
presupposes the exercise of other fundamental rights:
"... the concept of representative democracy is based on the
principle that it is the people who are the nominal holders of political
sovereignty and that, in the exercise of that sovereignty, elects its
representatives--in indirect democracies--so that they may exercise
political power. These
representatives, moreover, are elected by the citizens to apply certain
political measures, which at the same time implies the prior existence
of an ample political debate on the nature of policies to be
applied--freedom of expression--between organized political
groups--freedom of association--that have had the opportunity to express
themselves and meet publicly--freedom of assembly. At the same time, if these rights and freedoms are to be
exercised, there must be a juridical and institutional systems in which
laws outweigh the will of leaders and in which some institutions
exercise control over others for the sake of guaranteeing the integrity
of the expression of the people's will--the rule of law.[8]
In the Commission's view, ratification of the American Convention
creates more than an obligation to respect the exercise of the rights
recognized therein; it also creates an obligation to guarantee the
existence and exercise of all those rights, without distinction, because
they constitute a whole and are mutually interdependent.
It would therefore be senseless and even a breach of Article 29
of the Convention[9]
to draw some distinctions or establish categories where there are none,
or to give them the kind of literal interpretation that narrows their
scope. As the Commission
stated in Report 01/90, "Indeed, any mention of the right to vote
and to be elected would be mere rhetoric if unaccompanied by a precisely
described set of characteristics that the elections are required to
meet." (Report 01/90, paragraph 88).
From the foregoing it
follows that States are, as Article 2 of the Convention states, to adopt
the legislative and other measures necessary to give effect to the
rights and freedoms recognized in the Convention.
Finally, the Government contends that the electoral process being
challenged was conducted in the exercise of the sovereign powers of the
local executive and legislative branches of the State of Mexico.
Under Mexico's federal system, these powers are reserved to the
federated units of the United Mexican States and they alone have
exclusive power to legislate, organize and regulate the exercise of the
political rights of their citizenry.
The Government ends by stating that the authorities charged with
organizing, conducting and monitoring the election process being
challenged, enjoy sovereign and exclusive governmental powers, because
as their function is to see to it that the political rights, privileges
and opportunities to which Article 41 of the Constitution refers
materialize and are exercised.
The Commission must point out that under the 1969 Vienna
Convention on the Law of Treaties, the American Convention is
self-executing throughout the territory of the United Mexican States,
because "Unless a different intention appears from the treaty or is
otherwise established, a treaty is binding upon each party in respect of
its entire territory." At the time it ratified the Convention, Mexico stipulated no
reservations or amendments, which means that the provisions of Article
28, subparagraphs 1 and 2, are fully self-executing:
Article 28. Federal
Clause.
1.
Where a State Party is constituted as a federal state, the
national government of such State Party shall implement all the
provisions of the Convention over whose subject matter it exercises
legislative and judicial jurisdiction.
2.
With respect to the provisions over whose subject matter the
constituent units of the federal state have jurisdiction, the national
government shall immediately take suitable measures, in accordance with
its constitution and its laws, to the end that the competent authorities
of the constituent units may adopt appropriate provisions for the
fulfillment of this Convention.
Summing up the points made by the Commission thus far, one can
conclude that Mexico, upon ratifying the American Convention on Human
Rights, not only recognized the competence of the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights to state its opinion and conclusions, but
also undertook to respect and guarantee the exercise of the political
rights contemplated in Article 23 of the Convention.
The latter includes the right to vote in elections, which shall
have the minimum requirements needed to ensure that these rights are
exercised fully. Under
Article 2 of the Convention, Mexico also undertook to adopt the
legislative measures needed to give effect to those rights.
3.
DOMESTIC REMEDIES AGAINST ELECTION DECISIONS:
3.1 THE
DOMESTIC REMEDIES IN THE INSTANT CASE
A.
Remedies filed with election officials:
The petitioner's position
In accordance with the Law on Political Organizations and
Elections of the State of Mexico (LOPPEEM), the National Action Party
filed a protest with the Municipal Election Commission of Naucalpan de
Juárez, involving 163 polls of the 358 set up in the municipality.
That protest was heard and denied, because as the Election
Commission found it to be "frivolous and incitive." Under the law, the Municipal Election Commission was not
empowered to examine the merits of the case. It was obliged by law to
refrain from qualifying the case, since it is, in fact, the basis of the
remedy of complaint.
Under the provisions of that election law, the PAN filed a
complaint with the Naucalpan Election Commission, attaching the evidence
that it was able to compile in the short period of time that the law
allowed. It was the duty of
the Municipal Election Commission to convey the complaint and all its
attachments to the State Tribunal for Election Disputes for a ruling.
The complaint sought nullification of the elections on the
grounds that more than 40% of the municipal polling places were invalid
because of the way in which the election had been conducted.
The Tribunal dismissed the case for lack of evidence.
The complaint filed with the Election Commission was accompanied
by various pieces of evidence. However,
the Commission did not forward that evidence to the State Tribunal for
Election Disputes. The
Tribunal should have refrained from hearing the case until the case file
was complete, with all the appendices that had accompanied it.
However, the Tribunal handed down a decision based on that
incomplete case file, leaving the petitioner with no means of defense.
Once the complaint was found to be inadmissible and since there
was no higher court of review, the State Election Commission declared
the Naucalpan election valid. There
was lo lawful means to challenge that decision.
The Government's Position:
The Government described the procedure established in the Law on
Political Organizations and Elections of the State of Mexico (LOPPEEM),
Title Six, articles 195 to 228, for challenging the proceedings and
resolutions of electoral bodies. Under
the law in question, these remedies are as follows:
protest; objection; complaint; review, and appeal.
As to the petitioner's allegations to the effect that the file
sent to the Tribunal was incomplete, the Government stated that
"pursuant to the second paragraph of Article 201 of the LOPPEEM,
within 24 hours of receiving the complaint the Naucalpan Municipal
Election Commission sent said complaint to the State Tribunal for
Election Disputes (...) along with the case file."
To substantiate this, the Government said that the complaint
would not have been admitted by the Tribunal had it not met the
requirements stipulated under articles 201 and 204 of the law in
question; that operative paragraph 1 of the ruling that the Tribunal
handed down on November 23, 1990, reads as follows:
"On November 19 of this year, Mr. Antonio Vélez Torres,
Technical Secretary of the Election Commission, sent to this Tribunal
the complaint (...), and attached the following documents:
three lists of aides in the various districts, signed and sealed
by the Municipal Commission of Naucalpan de Juárez, Mexico; three press
clippings..."
As to the fact that the Tribunal should have refrained from
taking up the case until the file was complete, the Government cited
excerpts from a decision of the Tribunal wherein it requests the
Naucalpan Municipal Commission to forward certain documents.
The Government concludes that the case file was obviously
complete.
It added one remedy not mentioned by the petitioner:
from the date on which the location and number of polling places
were published the petitioner had five days in which to file an
objection with the corresponding Municipal or District Election
Commission. The Government
argued that the petitioner had allowed that time period to expire and
could not, therefore, avail himself of a remedy in respect of acts that
predated election day.
It pointed out that had there been irregularities in setting up
of polling places, the National Action Party, through its member on the
National Election Commission, "should have so stated for the record
and promptly exercised its right to report any irregularity and have it
entered in the corresponding minutes."
The Government argued that the petitioner was wrong when he
asserted that the Municipal Commission was not authorized to rule on the
merits of the protest: "Article 201 of the aforementioned Election
Law states exactly the opposite:
"Municipal or district election commissions shall forward to
the State Tribunal for Election Disputes, within 24 hours of their
presentation, any complaint filed with them in the corresponding brief,
as well as the protest and the ruling; a report on the matter; the
evidence provided; and all other documents deemed necessary to settle
the matter."
It stated that there was no reliable evidence to show that the
petitioner had filed 163 protests concerning 163 polling places since,
according to the Government, the State Tribunal received only 19
challenges.
B.
National Human Rights Commission (CNDH):
The petitioner's position
On November 22 and 23, 1990, before the State Tribunal issued its
decision and before the State Election Commission declared the results
of the election final, the leaders of the National Action Party in the
State of Mexico turned to the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH)
asking that it intercede with the State Election Commission.
The CNDH decided that it did not have the competence to use its
good offices since it was only empowered to intervene in
election-related matters when, in the course of elections, there had
been a violation of the individual rights recognized in the
Constitution; it had to do so before the competent bodies declared the
results final.
The Government's position:
The Government stated that by law, the National Human Rights
Commission does not have competence to take cognizance of
election-related matters, except in cases where the individual rights
recognized in the Federal Constitution have been violated.
It transcribed the provisions of the law and of the Constitution
that are the basis for the Commission. |
