Court orders Mexican Senate to take up pro-family constitutional amendment bill

Mexico City, Mexico, Sep 9, 2019 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- A Mexican federal circuit court has ordered the country’s Senate to consider a pro-family constitutional amendment bill filed more than three years ago.

The Mexican Council on the Family (ConFamilia) filed in February 2016 a federal constitutional amendment bill recognizing “the right of man and woman to enter into marriage and found a family.”

The bill also says that marriage “is an institution in the public interest and the natural foundation of the family,” and as such “must be protected by the state.”

The constitutional amendment proposal is the first citizen initiative introduced in the Mexican Senate. It had the support of 200,000 signatures, nearly twice the number required by law.

Under Mexican law, a citizen initiative is a means for citizens to directly file a specific bill or have a particular issue taken up by the Congress.  

In a video message released Sept. 5, Juan Dabdoub, president of ConFamilia, lamented that the previous Legislature of the Mexican Congress ignored the citizen initiative.

“In face of the refusal of the previous legislature, a federal judge ordered that the Senate had to consider the citizen initiative,” he said. However, “distressingly, the Senate again refused to fulfill its obligations and appealed.”

“But they lost the appeal and a court ordered the Senate Board of Directors that it had 20 business days to fulfill its responsibility,” he said

The court indicated that the 20 business days would begin Sept. 3.

“Thus the senators of the current legislature have the opportunity to lay the groundwork for the  fundamental element of society, the family, to be protected, and thereby greatly benefit all of Mexican society.”