Mexican Court Decision Regarding Zedillo Immunity Is Filed in U.S. Case

On March 28, 2013, the plaintiffs in the U.S. lawsuit against Ernesto Zedillo in federal court in Connecticut filed a copy of the Mexican court decision (with 108-page English translation) regarding the Mexican government’s request for immunity for the former president. The plaintiffs, however, did not ask the U.S. court for any relief as a result of the Mexican court decision. Presumably that will come later.

According to the U.S. plaintiffs’ attorneys’ summary, the Mexican court on March 6, 2013, (a) granted a writ of Amparo in favor of the plaintiffs; (b) declared that the immunity request lacked any constitutional or legal basis in Mexican law; and (c) instructed the current Mexican Ambassador to perform all official acts necessary to withdraw the immunity request, including notifying the U. S. Department of State of that withdrawal. (Pp.106-107.) The Mexican court provided the following reasons for its decision:

  1. The immunity request violated the principle of Constitutional Supremacy set forth in Article 133 of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States because the Ambassador of Mexico to the U.S. disregarded the international legal standard adopted by Mexico forbidding requests for head-of-state immunity allowing public officials to evade their responsibilities. (Pp. 99 – 106.)
  2. The immunity request lacks any rationale how Mexico’s national sovereignty would be damaged by civil proceedings against a former president who no longer occupies the post of, or performs the functions of, head of state. Id. at 94– 99.
  3. The immunity request violates the plaintiffs’ human rights of equality and nondiscrimination under the Mexican Constitution, Article 1, because the Mexican Ambassador engaged in disparate treatment pursuant to criteria of a political nature, creating a discretionary exception of impunity in favor of Zedillo, thereby preventing plaintiffs’ ability to exercise their rights to equally seek damages for the injuries suffered. Id. at 83-94.
  4. The immunity request violates plaintiffs’ human rights set forth in the Mexican Constitution, Articles 14 and 16, as applied by the Federal Law of Administrative Procedure, because it is not properly executed with the required formalities. Id. at 78-83.
  5. The immunity request violates plaintiffs’ human rights set forth in the Mexican Constitution, Articles 14 and 16, because the Mexican Ambassador failed to set forth or justify any jurisprudential, statutory or regulatory basis for the degree or amount of subject matter or jurisdictional authority. Id. at 70-78.

As noted in a prior post, the case in Mexico is not yet final so we will have to wait to see what additional proceedings, if any, occur there.