Supreme court approves pension reform
On 19 June the Mexican supreme court ruled that the bulk of the government's reform of the state sector pension system, the ISSSTE, was constitutional.
The ruling is a major relief to the government. On 16 June the president of the supreme court, Guillermo Ortiz Mayagoitia, had said that the reforms, approved by congress were unconstitutional. The full court, however, overruled his view that the reforms retrospectively (and therefore unconstitutionally) altered the rights of workers. Getting the ISSTE reform through congress was the big achievement of President Calderón's first year in office.
The full supreme court ruled that the law was constitutional in its most controversial element, which is to force state employees who refuse to join the new pension scheme, Pensionissste, to accept less beneficial terms. Under the reform, the minimum retirement age is lifted, pension premiums are increased and the number of years an employee has to pay into the fund is extended.
The court declared that only five minor articles in the 301 article reform were unconstitutional. The ISSSTE reform, which was opposed by the Left, triggered the biggest ever court case in Mexico. More than 233,000 legal objections to the reform were lodged to challenge the reform: the supreme court's ruling means that these objections to the principal, rather than the implementation of the law, have been overturned.
The supreme court's view was encapsulated by Sergio Valls, one of the justices. He said that the reform was designed to restore financial viability to the ISSSTE and so it was in the interest of all state workers, even though the actual terms of their pensions may deteriorate.
López Obrador fined. The Instituto Federal Electoral (IFE) fined two leftwing political parties, the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) and the Partido del Trabajo (PT), a total of M$731,480 (US$69,900) for TV spots in which the parties described Andrés Manuel López Obador as the legitimate president of Mexico. López Obrador was narrowly defeated by Felipe Calderón in the July 2006 election, but has failed to recognise his defeat. López Obrador claimed that the ruling amounted to censorship.
Cubans
On 14 June the Cuban ambassador to Mexico accused Cuban exiles from Miami of being behind the escape of 33 Cubans and four Hondurans from Mexican custody. The Cubans were released after a truck holding 37 illegal immigrants who had been arrested by the Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM) was hijacked in Chiapas. Some of the Cubans who escaped were subsequently found in the US. Some had been picked up on 6 June from a luxury yacht off Cancún, Quintana Roo. INM officials said that they did not believe that yachtsmen were in the habit of rescuing Cubans on rafts, which is what the Cubans claimed happened when they were questioned by the INM.
Jorge Morales Messner, the number two in the Chiapas state government,
noted that it was unusual for so many illegal immigrants to be transported
without a detachment from the Policía Federal Preventiva. He also said that the
INM agents gave contradictory reports of what had happened and when: some said
that the hijacking occurred at 10pm on 10 June; others at 4am on 11 June.
The Cuban ambassador to Mexico, Manuel Aguilera, accused “Miami gangsters"
of being involved in people-trafficking. He said that the gangs specialised in
getting Cubans into the US. So far this year the INM has detained 334
foreigners, mostly Cubans, in Quintana Roo.