Decree by which the INAI would be extinguished

Executive Summary:

• The current President of the Mexican Republic, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, at the beginning of this year, presented an initiative that proposes the modification of various articles of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, regarding organic simplification.
• Derived from this initiative, the Constitutional Points Commission of the Chamber of Deputies concluded the preparation of the opinion in which it proposes the disappearance of several autonomous constitutional bodies (the “Opinion”), including, among others, the INAI, (National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data).
• The Opinion will be presented for discussion, and possible approval, in the Chamber of Deputies for the period between August 1 and 22 of this year.

It is argued that the structural modification proposed in the Opinion is in response to the recognition of the supremacy of the general, public and social interest, which leads to the effective exercise of human rights that imply the enjoyment of the common goods of the Nation, as an indispensable condition. As a result, they rethink the administrative organization of the Mexican State to make it consistent with the principles of rationality, austerity, efficiency, effectiveness, and the right to better public administration.

Furthermore, by modifying the constitutional text in terms of organic simplification, the Opinion states that it is intended to strengthen the traditional public powers recognized in the constitutional history of Mexico and specifically in the Constitution of 1917.

On the other hand, the Opinion indicates that the administrative functions carried out by autonomous constitutional bodies that are being extinguished or merged (such as the INAI) can be exercised by the basic dependencies of the Federal Executive Branch. In this sense, the functions of the INAI would be transferred to the following public entities at the federal level:

• Secretariat of the Civil Service.
• Control and disciplinary body of the Judiciary.
• Control bodies of autonomous constitutional bodies.
• Comptroller's Offices of the Congress of the Union.
• National Institute of Elections and Consultations (an organization whose constitution has not been approved).

The distribution of powers to the aforementioned public entities would be replicated at the state level with their comptroller's offices or homologous areas of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches.

In relation to INAI officials, the Opinion establishes that, upon its entry into force, those officials who continue in their position will conclude their functions until the legislation that will be issued to comply with the provisions of these constitutional reforms comes into force, both at the federal and state level, respectively, except for those whose term of their appointment ends previously.

With this reform, the nature of INAI as an autonomous constitutional body would be extinguished, and its powers would pass mainly to the Federal Executive Branch, this through one of its dependencies: the Secretariat of Public Function. This change in the nature of the public entity in charge of ensuring the protection of personal data, guaranteeing access to public information and complying with public transparency would imply that its decisions could be subject to the guidelines established by the President of the Republic (head of the Executive Branch), through the secretaries of state that he himself appoints, replacing the functional autonomy that INAI currently enjoys, which allows its actions not to be subject to any of the three powers of the Union, which provides greater independence, specialization, agility, control and transparency in the execution of its functions.

It is important to remember at all times that the main argument in favour of establishing autonomous constitutional bodies was to establish independent bodies that would allow a barrier to be established between (i) the provision of services by the State in highly specialised areas of great relevance to the protection of rights and the development of certain industries; and (ii) the interference of political parties that tend to influence the direction of decisions taken within the traditional institutions of the State.